If we're going as far as having access to "cat" and "shell", then it might be fun to tinker with "dd" as well. Then the OP can get to just the part of the file he wants to: 
open(THIRDMB, "dd if=$filename bs=1024 skip=2048 count=1024|") or die;
while(<>) { ... } # Reads third MB of file only.
close(THIRDMB);

[download]
dd's useful in Unix for skipping around in large files at the shell level where seek(2) might be a bit more complicated.

In reply to Re: (tye)Re: get the line of ith occurrence of '>' without OPENING THE FILE by clintp
in thread get the line of ith occurrence of '>' without OPENING THE FILE by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.