Whenever it comes to storing values in files or sending them around I now tend to use YAML which is breathtakingly easy to use and very effective. It automatically does the line wrapping and so you should not get a problem in the first place.

From the YAML perldoc page:

NAME
  YAML - YAML Ain't Markup Language (tm)

SYNOPSIS
  use YAML;

  # Load a YAML stream of 3 YAML documents into Perl data structures.
  my ($hashref, $arrayref, $string) = Load(<<'...');
  ---
  name: ingy
  age: old
  weight: heavy
  # I should comment that I also like pink, but don't tell anybody.
  favorite colors:
  - red
  - white
  - blue
  ---
  - Clark Evans
  - Oren Ben-Kiki
  - Brian Ingerson
  --- >
  You probably think YAML stands for "Yet Another Markup Language". It
  ain't! YAML is really a data serialization language. But if you want
  to think of it as a markup, that's OK with me. A lot of people try
  to use XML as a serialization format.

  "YAML" is catchy and fun to say. Try it. "YAML, YAML, YAML!!!"
  ...

  # Dump the Perl data structures back into YAML.
  print Dump($string, $arrayref, $hashref);

  # YAML::Dump is used the same way you'd use Data::Dumper::Dumper
  use Data::Dumper;
  print Dumper($string, $arrayref, $hashref);

DESCRIPTION
  The YAML.pm module implements a YAML Loader and Dumper
  based on the YAML 1.0 specification.
  <http://www.yaml.org/spec/>

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Link for the entire spec ( which you almost never use ): http://www.yaml.org/spec/.