I formatted your code using code tags. Please read Writeup Formatting Tips. 
sub delimit {
    my ( $tos, $ccs, $rp, $sb, $body, $in_file ) = @_;
    my @lines;
    if ( defined $in_file ) {    # file submited
        @ARGV = $in_file;
        $body = "";
        while (<>) {
            push( @lines, $_ ) unless (/espf\[/);    # hangs here some
+times
        }    # end of while
    }    # end of if
}    # end of sub

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If you wrote the "delimit" sub, perhaps you could describe in words what you are trying to accomplish. It seems like you are trying to open a file named by the $in_file variable. Perhaps if you use the open function, instead of assigning to @ARGV (which is a little unusual), you could at least get some information as whether the input file exists. For example: 

open my $fh, '<', $in_file or die "Error: can not open file $in_file $
+!";

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In reply to Re: @ARGV while (<>) hangs by toolic
in thread @ARGV while (<>) hangs by gatorreina

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