#!/usr/bin/perl

$/ = ";\n";
while (my $line = <DATA> ){
   $line =~ s/^#[^\r\n]*//g; # get rid of any comments
   print "Query: $line\n";
}

__DATA__
# one comment
# two comment
# another comment

insert into table_name values(1, 'testing 1 2 3');
# more comments
insert into table_name values (2, 'test &#149;');
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Yes, the file I'm reading is SQL stuff. But I'm not directly importing it with mysql tools because I cannot - they're not available. So I'm doing it the "hard way". I think that perhaps I have to do a "local $/" inside the while loop to change the rec_sep which affects my regular expression, but I'm not sure. I want to make sure that neither a too-lenient record separator will mangle the second insert (which contains a semicolon in a value), nor will the comment-deleting line mangle the second insert which also contains a pound-symbol (octothorpe).

What the heck am I overlooking? It doesn't take care of all the comments, just the stuff anchored to the beginning of the entire string. I must be using anchors wrong, or using the pattern modifiers incorrectly. I've monkeyed with them but with no luck. I thought I had regex basics whipped, but clearly I don't. I feel so humbled.