Here's one way you could parse it. As for what you do with it after that, I don't know. I just dump it with Dumper so you can see the structure.

use strict;
use warnings;

my @records;

<DATA> =~ /^Daily Listing of Reports/ or die "bad report input line 1\
+n";
<DATA> =~ /^GW Posted Date/ or die "bad report input line 2\n";

my $record = [];
while (<DATA>)
{
    chomp;
    push @$record, $_;
    if ( /^R[A-Z]\d{5}$/ )
    {
        splice @{$record}, 2,   $#{$record}-2, join ' ',
               @{$record}[ 2 .. $#{$record}-1 ];
        push @records, $record;
        $record = [];
    }
}

use Data::Dumper;

print Dumper \@records;


__DATA__
Daily Listing of Reports
GW Posted Date     CRS Publication Date     Title     Text
01/14/2009
12/09/2008
China-U.S. Relations: Current Issues and Implications for U.S. Policy
RL33877
01/14/2009
12/31/2008
Greenhouse Gas Emission Drivers: Population, Economic Development and
Growth, and Energy Use
RL33970
01/14/2009
12/30/2008
School Construction, Modernization, Renovation, and Repair Issues:
110th Congress
RS22894
© Copyright GalleryWatch.com, Inc. (1999 - 2009), provided under licen
+se.
NO CLAIM TO ORIGINAL U.S. OR STATE GOVERNMENT WORKS
[download]

Thanks so much. The code you provide solved many of my questions. However it then opened up another dilemma. The line:  if ( /^R[A-Z]\d{5}$/ ) works great unless the text in question reads:

Projections of FY2009 Federal SCHIP Allotments Under CHIPRA 2009

If my "text" ends with a date then the subsequent lines all join until the code finds another string of text that also ends in a date. In this case both lines happen to end in 2009.

The line: if ( /^R[A-Z]\d{5}$/ ) works great unless the text in question reads:

I don't see the relevance of the example text you posted. That line is suppose to match the order number. He did make assumptions as to what the order number looked like, but that doesn't seem to be what you're questioning.

Thanks. Yes, you're right. I made an assumption based on the data I saw. You are certainly free (and expected) to modify the code as necessary. Even better, learn from it and then write your own code. :-)

Between the mind which plans and the hands which build, there must be a mediator... and this mediator must be the heart.

You're not clear on what you want to do with the data. It sounds like you are trying to parse it, but that's not necessary to email it. Please clarify.

And please fix the formatting of your post. (Add <p> at the start of every paragraph, and add <c></c> around data and code.)

My apologies for the formatting, first post. Yes, I thought I needed to parse those "groups" together into a line and was having difficulty with the multi line title lines. I had never considered that parsing was not necessary for an email. How would perl do that with the data I provided?

Yes, I thought I needed to parse those "groups" together into a line

That doesn't make much sense. Parsing is the opposite of putting things together into a line.

Given the lack of direction, I'll just create an array of records using a single line lookahead.

my $line = <$fh>;

# Skip first line
die if !defined($line);
$line = <$fh>;

# Skip second line
die if !defined($line);
$line = <$fh>;

while (defined($line) && $line !~ /^© Copyright/) {
   chomp( my $date1 = $line );
   $line = <$fh>;

   die if !defined($line);
   chomp( my $date2 = $line );
   $line = <$fh>;

   die if !defined($line);
   my $body = $line;
   $line = <$fh>;

   my $body = '';
   while (  defined($line) 
         && $line !~ /^\d{2}\/\d{2}\/\d{4}$/
         && $line !~ /^© Copyright/
   ) {
      $body .= $line;
      $line = <$fh>;
   }
   chomp( $body );

   my ($order) =~ $body =~ s/\n(.{7})\z//
      or die;

   push @recs, [ $date1, $date2, $body, $order ];
}

# Skip copyright line
die if !defined($line);
$line = <$fh>;

# Skip another line
die if !defined($line);
$line = <$fh>;

die if defined($line);
[download]