#! perl
use strict;
my $file = shift(@ARGV) || "foo.txt";
open(FH, $file) or die("Cannot read '$file': $!");

my @field_list = qw(put in reasonable names here for your data);
while (<FH>) {
  chomp;
  my %row;
  @row{@field_list} = split /\|/, $_;
  my ($field_data, $comment) = split /;/, $row{data};
  print "$field_data\n";
}