Additionally one could run the file in the debugger and use the command 'v' or inspect @DB::dbline

Not sure what you mean? Dumper doesn't AFAIK have interpretations of CR LF, it is just showing the data, either outputting it raw (for the CRLF-relevant characters) or as escapes with Useqq, where \r means chr(0x13) and \n means chr(0x10) (assuming non-EBCDIC). If perl is opening the source in text mode, a binmode *DATA; before the seek/read may be good (don't know if that even works or if *DATA is somehow magic in a way that prevents changing layers).

> Not sure what you mean?

see Re: Perl's __LINE__ off by 2

The OP thinks that he has a mix of newlines in his source, leading to different line interpretations by Perl and his editor.

I'm pretty sure that <DATA> gives me the lines the same way the compiler sees them.

A dump OTOH might add another layer of confusion.

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
see Wikisyntax for the Monastery}