Nothing to do with your question, but...

while ($newline = <FILEHANDLE>){

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use strict;
use warnings;

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and then

while (my $newline = <FILEHANDLE>){

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   if ($newline = /^>/) {

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This is most probably not what you want, since you're assigning to $newline. You want

   if ($newline =~ /^>/) {

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instead.

  $stuff = $newline;
  &play_with($stuff);

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Unless play_with() modifies its argument, you may want to pass $newline directly to it, without passing through an intermediate variable. But more importantly, the &-form of sub call is now obsolete and likely not to do what one may think, so unless you do know, don't!

In reply to Re: How do I backtrack while reading a file line-by-line? by blazar
in thread How do I backtrack while reading a file line-by-line? by mdunnbass

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