#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my $file = 'c:/data.txt';
my @data;
my $line_cnt = -1;

# get data in a 2D array @data[$record][$field]
# open DATA, $file or die "Oops, Perl says $!\n";
while (<DATA>) {
    chomp;
    next unless $_;
    my @fields = split /\|/, $_;
    push @data, \@fields;
    $line_cnt++;
}
close DATA;

# access data in our 2D array, note offsets are from 0 not 1
print "Line 2 element 3 is ", $data[1][2], "\n\n";

# dump all the data as an (indented :-) HTML table
print "<table border='1'>\n";
for my $line ( 0 .. $line_cnt ) {
    print "  <tr>\n";
    my @fields = @{$data[$line]};
    for my $field ( 0 .. $#fields ) {
        print "    <td>$fields[$field]</td>\n";
    }
    print "  </tr>\n";
}
print "</table>\n";

__DATA__
1|A|B|C
2|D|E|F
3|G|H|I