#!/bin/perl -w
use strict;

open(FILE,"myfile") or die "Couldn't open myfile";
my %first_record_hash;
while (<FILE>)
{
my @array = split '|';
if ($first_record_hash{$array[0]} < 6)
   {
   #insert record into database
   $first_record_hash{$array[0]}++;
   }
else
   {
   next;
   }
}