Heya,

Earlier you said..
When opening the output file with vi ...

Are you looking at the output file in vi? vim?
You didn't mention cat, or, a pager (like less or more).

Are you on a stock linux machine? If so, your vi may be vim.

If so, check your

/etc/vimrc
/usr/local/etc/vimrc
or, your ~/.vimrc

for a vim text wrapping directive such as:

set textwidth=72
[download]

If you're using the stock vi on Solaris or BSD or something else there's textwrap controls too.. I don't know them off the top of my head.. I think it's the "wraplen" directive ..

cat your outputfile in a large xterm at the command line - see if you have the same problem.. that is, without using an editor?

As hinted at by Zaxo and Dragonchild, this probably has not to do with Perl:)