Exec block with regular expression

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Sangeetha

Can you explain what exactly happens in this block?
I don't get a clear explanation of what "xEF\xBB\xBF" means in the below code and why it is having drop ()? .

<Exec> if $raw_event =~ /^(\xEF\xBB\xBF)?(date-time,|#)/ drop(); else { csv_parser->parse_csv(); $EventTime = parsedate(${date-time}); } </Exec>