I'm not sure what you mean by sort into independant variables, but the code below should point you in the right direction.

use strict;
use warnings;

my $a = ']a\[';
my $b = ']b\[';

#open(HANDLE, "$dataFile") or die "Error: Unable to open data file";

while (my $line = <DATA>) {#(<HANDLE>) {
    chomp $line;
    if ($line =~ /$a/ )  {
        my @fields = split /\].*?\[/, $line;
        print ((join "]a[", @fields). "\n");
    }
    elsif ($line =~ /$b/) {
        my @fields = split /\].*?\[/, $line;
        print ((join "]b[", @fields). "\n");
    }
}
#close HANDLE;

[download]

Prints:

]a[1
]b[FORTUNE BAY]b[R74]b[(9)]b[58
]a[2
]b[LUCKY LAD]b[R72]b[(10)]b[57
]a[3

[download]
__DATA__
]a[1
]b[FORTUNE BAY]1[R74]c[(9)]d[58
]e[b g 9 Little Brown Jug-Gemfly (by Golden Elder (GB))]f[(BLINKERS)
]g[A W & Mrs P I Reynolds, T A Robinson, D J & Mrs V G Stuart & A R Wa
+ghorn
]h[Gay Stuart, Riverton
]i[Emerald green, navy blue braces & diamond armbands, emerald green c
+ap
]j[04640]w[CANT 13 Aug H Rating 76 1600m 11 of 16 Tailend inr,btld clo
+ser inr T C Newton 58 (6) 15/15 Wnr: BRIGHTON PIER (AUS) 1:42.69 13.8
+L
]k[ :(46-2-7-6-6-$21145)
]m[ F(0-0-0) G(17-1-5) D(7-0-1) S(15-1-6) H(7-0-1) C(1-0-0) Dst(2-0-0)

]a[2
]b[LUCKY LAD]1[R72]c[(10)]d[57
]e[ch g 6 Shinko King (IRE)-Argyll Dazzler (by Tarrago (ITY))]f[(BLINK
+ERS)
]g[D H F Green
]h[Kevin Hughes, Riccarton Park
]i[Emerald green & light blue diagonal stripes, striped sleeves & cap
]j[X3333]w[CANT 10 Aug H Rating 76 1800m 3 of 15 Trld ldr,2nd tn,fght 
+mid N G Harris 57 (4) 1/1 Wnr: SHRKAN 2:01.69 4.5L
]k[ :(28-1-4-7-2-$12688)
]m[ F(0-0-0) G(13-0-4) D(7-0-3) S(6-1-3) H(2-0-1) C(0-0-0) Dst(3-0-2)

]a[3

[download]
Perl is Huffman encoded by design.

In reply to Re: Tag pattern matching by GrandFather
in thread Tag pattern matching by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • 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! —
  • 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:
    & &amp;
    < &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.