Re^3: Storing multiple blocks of text in the __DATA__ section

[graff]

Thanks(++) - I had missed that detail in the OP. As you pointed out in your update, it shouldn't be difficult to craft a record separator that's distinctive and easy to strip out. Alternately, it might not be so bad to "encode" record-internal blank lines in some distinctive and "easily decodable" manner - e.g.:

$/ = "";
while (<DATA>) {
    s/^(.*)\n//;
    $key = $1;
    s/\n==(?=\n)/\n/g;
    $structure{$key} = $_;
}

__DATA__
key1
Here's a text block including blank lines ("encoded" as "==" in the pe
+rl script):
==
and here's a part of the block that's enclosed within "blank lines"
==
and here's the last part of the value for key1.

key2
blah blah
etc.

UPDATED to use the minimum necessary look-ahead, so that consecutive "blank lines" inside a record would be handled properly.

[blindluke]

Although, as LanX already noticed, my descriptions can contain several paragraphs, thank you for suggesting paragraph mode. Your solution is both simple and elegant.

And the technique with encoding line breaks could indeed work. I would switch the two regexps, so there is no need to assign the capture value to $key, and I would use the \\ linebreak symbol, as it is already associated with manual linebreak (in LaTeX).

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my %desc;
{
    local $/ = "";
    while (<DATA>) {
        s/\\\\/\n/;
        s/^(.*)\n//;
        $desc{$1} = $_;
    }
}

print "{$_} => \n$desc{$_}" for (keys %desc);

__DATA__
house_west
You are standing in an open field west of a white house,
with a boarded front door.
\\
There is a small mailbox here.

house_south
You are facing the south side of a white house. 
There is no door here, and all the windows are boarded.

house_behind
You are behind the white house.
A path leads into the forest to the east. 
\\
In one corner of the house there is a small window which is slightly a
+jar.

Again, thank you for your suggestion and the provided examples.