Actually your original approach in the OP with for( split ...) had this problem.

The while(m/.../) here is an iterator, you could operate with a sliding window to read consecutive chunks into memory, and adjust with pos where you left of.

Cheers Rolf
(addicted to the Perl Programming Language and ☆☆☆☆ :)
Wikisyntax for the Monastery

In reply to Re^5: Making this script process 56,000 lines 5 times faster by LanX
in thread Making this script process 56,000 lines 5 times faster by kris004

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