If you want to process an input file section by section, with sections separated by blank lines, you could consider reading the file in paragraph mode. You can do this by changing the default input record separator to an empty string as shown here.

knoppix@Microknoppix:~$ perl -E '
> open my $inFH, q{<}, \ <<EOD or die $!;
> VECT
> 111
> 222
> 333
> 
> VECT
> 444
> 555
> 666
> 777
> 
> VECT
> 888
> 999
> EOD
> 
> {
>     local $/ = q{};
>     while ( <$inFH> )
>     {
>         print;
>         say q{=} x 20;
>     }
> }'
VECT
111
222
333

====================
VECT
444
555
666
777

====================
VECT
888
999
====================
knoppix@Microknoppix:~$
[download]

I hope this is helpful.