I am trying to implement an XML file parser in Perl.

You do know there are already several XML modules available for you?

However perl seems to read the file as if it was a .TXT file

Perl always reads a file as either text or binary on windows, and always as binary (or text, depending on how you look at it) on unix. There are some changes in 5.8 (the new PerlIO layer) but you are probably not using that.

where one line in the .XML file is being seen as several lines in the .TXT file. When the xml file is viewed using Internet Explorer the line appears as one line but if I open the same file using Notepad the one line appears as several lines

Internet explorer probably sticks several lines together when showing an XML file. There ARE several lines, and that's you perl reads it. Don't be fooled by IE.

Any ideas ?

Parsing XML right is more difficult than you may think. I would suggest using XML::Simple for small files (that you can keep in memory), and XML::Parser and relatives for bigger ones.

Hope this helps,
Joost.

-- 
Joost       downtime n. The period during which a system
            is error-free and immune from user input.
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