I am uncertain whether I see what you mean. Just as an idea, would the following do what you want?

cat file | perl -le '$max=79; while(<>){print unless lentgh $_ > $max}'

If this would work for you, except from the memory issue, write the while loop properly with open first...
if that still fails, consider using Tie::File.

Cheers, Sören

In reply to Re: Reading files, skipping very long lines... by Happy-the-monk
in thread Reading files, skipping very long lines... by Excalibor

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