The solution: redefine $/ right after your slurp:

No. That's just another potential problem. The solution is:

my $slurp;
{local $/;
 $slurp = <INPUTFILE>};
[download]

Or:

my $slurp = do {local(@ARGV, $/) = "inputfile"; <>};
[download]

Or even:

my $slurp = `cat inputfile`;
[download]