I got the expected result...

Using Perl 5.008008

Result using DATA:

Found at 652: >NEWTABLE - third line<
Reread as >NEWTABLE - third line<
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What platform? I find it unlikely it's my 5.8.8 that does it. I'm on 2.6.17-gentoo-r8 i686 AMD Athlon. I fail to see how the platform could matter for *DATA, but here we are. Hrm, better yet... What version of the SelfLoader? I'm on $VERSION = "1.0904". That comes with the perl dist, so I fail to see how that could be it either unless they changed something between 5.8.7 and 5.8.8 ...