I am trying to split a single large file into several slightly less large files, based on the first word on each line. It works fine, for the most part. I would like to restore the original field separator, but it's not working. What am I doing wrong? 
#!/usr/bin/perl 

while ($line = <>){
    @record = split(/\|/, $line);
    $fields = @record - 1;
    if ( open(OUTFILE, ">>$record[0]") ) {
        $" = "\|";
        print @record[1..$fields];
    }
    else { 
        die("cannot open $record[0]");
    }

}

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In reply to $" seems not to be working by azool

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