The first test showed nothing odd. The second test revealed the gremlin: ^M$ after each line. I now remember reading about anothermonk with the same problem. Without the -w flag, Perl ignored everything after the filename. Add a flag after the filename and Perl kept looking till it found the gremlin!
Thank you jasonk!
-theo-
(so many nodes and so little time ... )
Note: All opinions are untested, unless otherwise stated