The input file was created on a unix system, there doesn't seem to be any errant newlines introduced (everything is done locally on my workstation - there isn't any ftp-ing, and I've created most using plain 'ol vi)
$/ isn't set to anything explicitly - my understanding is that should default to \n, although I'll be more than willing to try it (although I can't seem to figure out how to do that offhand)
I tried adding the split on the @EVENT_ARRAY line, and the script outputs nothing, blank.
Thanks for the quick responses...