i have figured out how to read a file a paragraph at a time :D lol. in this example i will be reading a file a paragraph at a time and then getting only certain data back.

this will return everything AFTER the pattern up until a newline char.works very quickly for me but prob could be done faster by a seasoned coder. you can modify it to suit your needs hopefully.
tested with active perl and win7 ultimate x64 
$/ = ""; #set to paragraph mode

while(<$file>){
    
    if ($_ =~ /$first_match/ && $_ =~ /$second_match/ && $_ =~ /$third
+_match/){
    
        print "$_\n";
        
        my ($needed_data_0) = (/^data_here(.+)/, $_);
        my ($needed_data_1) = (/^more_data(.+)/, $_);
        my ($needed_data_2) = (/^other_data(.+)/, $_);

                print "data0 is: $needed_data_0\n";
                print "data1 is: $needed_data_1\n";
                print "data2 is: $needed_data_2";
    
    }
}

[download]
any input or pointers are welcome.
:)

In reply to read file a paragraph at a time and return paragraph OR get specific data from paragraph by james28909

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.