If you intended to slurp the whole file by $file = <INF>;, I think you are mistaken. At least this is what a short test on my computer gave me. binmode appearently does not set $/ (and actually I never expected it to). Try $file = do { local $/; <INF> }; instead. Maybe it works, but there might be other bugs as well. Good luck on your hunt!
Hope this helped.
CombatSquirrel.

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Entropy is the tendency of everything going to hell.