I really hate unless (cond) { ... } else { ... } constructs. I think they're better written as if (not cond) { ... } else { ... }. It could be I'm an old C programmer, but I find it easier to follow.

More importantly, I think your code will fail to process the last record. I would do something like the following:

my @record;

while( <FH> ) {
    chomp;
    if( /start-delim/ ) {
        @record and process( @record );
        @record = ();
    }
    push @record, $_;
}
@record and process( @record );
[download]

If there was an end delimiter, the loop could be flipped around to a do/while, and one could do away with the two calls to process().

I note in passing that davido's idea of setting $/ is excellent, but it onlys work if the delimiter is a fixed string. If you need an RE to match the delimiter, a different approach is also possible.

---

---

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! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

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:
	&		&
	<		&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.