If your going to change $/ use local $/ = "new value";.

Your script won't loop forever, nor will a while loop. Your computer won't blow up either. :-)

Have a look at perlvar (search for $INPUT_RECORD_SEPARATOR) to get the full details.

Here's a test:

#!perl

use 5.12.0;
use warnings;

local $/ = "1313";

while (<DATA>) {
    say qq{Found line: $_};
} 

__DATA__
qwerty
qwerty
qwerty
qwerty
qwerty
qwerty
[download]

Which outputs:

$ strange_in_rec_sep.pl
Found line: qwerty
qwerty
qwerty
qwerty
qwerty
qwerty
[download]

Adding 1313 to the data:

__DATA__
qwerty
qwerty
qwerty
1313
qwerty
qwerty
qwerty
[download]

The output becomes:

$ strange_in_rec_sep.pl
Found line: qwerty
qwerty
qwerty
1313
Found line: 
qwerty
qwerty
qwerty
[download]

Thanks for your amusing post. I had a good chuckle. :-)

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