But see, that's precisely what I'm trying to avoid, anything except the absolute minimum of code which I'd like to think Perl strives for.  All I want to do is write something like the following and have it work properly. 
{
  $/ = 'myrecordsep';
  while (<DATA>) {
    # do the actual work on text here
  }
}
__DATA__
myrecordsep
field1=item1
field2=item2
myrecordsep
...

[download]
I want Perl to read a chunk at a time following that model, that's absolutely all I'm looking for. Like I mentioned before, I've written different scripts that utilized different methods but I'm exploring this particular avenue. I appreciate the attention to the problem though.
"The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris. See the Camel Book for why." -- `man perl`

In reply to Re^2: Change the behavior of Perl's IRS by LighthouseJ
in thread Change the behavior of Perl's IRS by LighthouseJ

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