#!perl
use strict;

my $file = "foo.txt";
open (FH, "$file") || die ("unable to open the file!: $!");
my @ODB = <FH>;
close (FH);

my $line;
foreach $line (@ODB) {
my ($field1,$field2,$field3,$field4,$field5,$field6,$field7,$field8)=split('\|',$line);
my ($field_data,$comment)=split(";",$field8);
print "$field_data\n";
}

##</code><code>##

field1data|field2data|field3data|field4data|field5data|field6data|field7data|field8data1; comment goes here!