Re^2: Match the starting \>

[almut]

...does nothing different

it could do something different, though, if you stick more closely to what the original code was:

if (/</) {
    s/^<\s//;  # remove "< " at beginning of line

    # ...do something with lines that do/did contain a '<' anywhere
}

(not sure whether that is what the OP intended, though...)