It would be great if you could include some of your code to look at; you'll find it helps a lot.

Otherwise, everybody (myself included) will probably suggest that you start using regular expressions to solve your tokenizing dilemma.

Update Here's an example of code using that character you keep talking about. Lemme know if it solves your problem; otherwise post some code.
my $schtuff = "blah ENDOFLINE blah ENDOFLINE blah ENDOFLINE\n"; open my $DEADEND, ">schtuff.txt" or die 'try again'; { print $DEADEND $schtuff; } close $DEADEND; open my $moreSchtuff, "<schtuff.txt" or die $!; { local $/ = 'ENDOFLINE'; while (<$moreSchtuff>) { print $_ . "<-- SHAZAM! properly tokenized!\n"; } } close $moreSchtuff;
5.8.8 Output
blah ENDOFLINE<-- SHAZAM! properly tokenized! blah ENDOFLINE<-- SHAZAM! properly tokenized! blah ENDOFLINE<-- SHAZAM! properly tokenized!

In reply to Re: Input Record Separator WON'T WORK! by rgiskard
in thread Input Record Separator WON'T WORK! by stalepretzel

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.