i'm trying to print the unique keys of a datafile.
my key indexes are 0,1,2,3 and my delimiter is ^
4363^7619082^309839685^309841122^14^18
4363^7619082^309839685^309841122^14^19
4363^7619082^309839685^309841122^14^20
4363^7619082^309839685^309841122^26^25
4363^7619082^309839685^309841122^26^26
4363^7619082^309839685^309841122^14^52
4363^7619082^309839685^309841122^14^51
4363^7619082^309839685^309841122^23^21

[download]
this code works: 
 perl -ne '@ar = split /\^/; $key="$ar[0],$ar[1],$ar[2],$ar[3]\n"; pri
+nt $key if ( ! $seen{$key} ++ );' datafile

[download]
but i want to use -F like so: 
perl -naF^ -e '$key="$F[0],$F[1],$F[2],$F[3]\n"; print $key if ( ! $se
+en{$key} ++ );' datafile

or

-F/^/
-F/\^/
-F"^"
-F'^'

[download]
but it wont split!
any suggestions?

In reply to perl one liner with -F special char by LanceDeeply

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