[MacPerl] Perl vs MacPerl constructs?

[carl@1unique.com (Carl Baltrunas & Cherie Marinelli 1.6v2)]

Hi everyone,
  This is probably a dumb question, but I haven't had time to get the current
FAQ and scan it lately, so I thought I'd ask the list... please don't berate
me for asking first...

  I've written a fair amount of PERL on unix platforms, and a couple of simple
scripts on the Mac, currently running an older version... 4.1.3, so this may
be a bug, or I may be doing something wrong....

  The variable $/ is supposed to contain the input record separator... and when
I've tried reading some files which are actually separated by \012 (newline)
coming from my UUCP client software, then the entire file (or as much as will
fit in a single buffer) gets read on each  'while ( $line = <FILE>)'  statement.
I've been able to do pattern matching properly after doing a 'tr/\012/\n/' to
the data, but I'd much rather be able to ONLY read in the first line or two
instead of the entire file, since for my application, I only need to read the
first line to be able to separate a mail message from a compressed news file.

  Is thre some MacPerl variable that I need to set to make this work the way
I expect it to work? ...or am I barking up the wrong variable for the input
separator... $/ ...

  Thanks in advance.

I can post an example section of the code I'm using if it helps, but I think
my description is accurate enough.... to not require it.

-Carl


  


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