It is hard to know if your example is literal or not ie is that a \n newline char or the literal string "\n". Anyway in the first case the input record separator is "\n\n" (two newlines) or in the second case it is q/"\n"/. Set the input record separator to one of these values to read in a record (rather than a line) at a time. 
open FILE, $somefile or die $!;
# set input record separator
$/ = "\n\n";  # to this
$/ = q/"\n"/;  # or ?? this 
while(<FILE>){
    ($a,$b,$c,$d) = split ',';
}

[download]

cheers

tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

In reply to Re: Need Help Parsing File by tachyon
in thread Need Help Parsing File by Anonymous Monk

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