Perhaps I should have read a little closer, although the cause of his issue is not immediately evident. I agree it is an unusual idiom. While the use in the loop could be rationalised the use in the two splits on ^ seems pretty dubious at first glance. This would be pretty usual sort of syntax assuming the data is in blocks as you suggest.

local $/ = "";  # set paragraph mode to read one record at a time
while (my $record = <DATA>) {
    for ( split /[\n\r]+/, $record ) {
        my ($Num, $Qt, $_trashit) = split /\^/, $_;
        print "$Num || $Qt || $_trashit\n";
    }
}
__DATA__
22009^1^52.90
22010^1^42.90
22011^1^32.90

22009^1^52.90
22010^1^42.90
22011^1^32.90
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