Take a look at the Tie::File module:

Tie::File represents a regular text file as a Perl array. Each element in the array corresponds to a record in the file. The first line of the file is element 0 of the array; the second line is element 1, and so on.
The file is not loaded into memory, so this will work even for gigantic files.

Jason L. Froebe

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In reply to Re: Out of memory error while Reading 5GB text file by jfroebe
in thread Out of memory error while Reading 5GB text file by Anonymous Monk

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