Just off the top of my head...I would read in the file, and search for the asterisk. When I found it, I would grab the keyword. This would be my hash key, then I would just push the lines onto the hash until I hit my next keyword...

######untested code
#should be close in theory though

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

my $keyword='';
my %file_hash=();
while(<>) {
   chomp;
   next if (/^\;/);
   if ( /\*/) {
         $keyword=(split /\*/)[1];
   }
   if ($keyword ne "END") {
      push @{$file_hash{$keyword}},$_;
   }
}

foreach my $line (@{$file_hash{'DESCRIPTION'})
{
   #do what ever you want with each line that falls in
   # the description block

   print "$line\n";

}
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This is probably not the most elegant way of doing it, but it should get you going down some path or at least give you some suggestions. cheers! krazken