My problem is this: once I'm in the correct starting position for my next record in the unsorted file (i.e after calling seek), how can I extract *just* the next record and not the rest of the file from that point on?

Read the file line-by-line (i.e., using <FILE> in scalar context) until you've read the complete record.

In reply to Re: Re: Re: Sorting A File Of Large Records by dws
in thread Sorting A File Of Large Records by Anonymous Monk

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