Perhaps if you post some code it would be easier to see what you are doing wrong.

I am guessing the correct version might look something like this:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

open( my $file, "/tmp/bighurkinfile" ) or die "failed to open bighurki
+nfile: $!";
chomp( my $pattern = <$file> ); # assumes pattern on first line by its
+elf

my @records;
{
    local $/ = undef;
    @records = split /$pattern/, <$file>; # probably should do sanity 
+check on the pattern first...    
}
[download]

Is it anything like this?
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