You could check out AnyData or DBD::AnyData, but at this point I don't know if it'll make your life easier or not. You ought to be able to get the basics of splitting a field and searching for a value. You are splitting the file ok I think, except the last field still has a newline. If you can describe your problem better, then we can offer better help; otherwise we're just guessing. If you only need to search repeatedly by one unique field (assuming name is unique), and the data will fit in memory, then I'd use a hash array with that field as the key, and let the value just be the line as is (you can save if needed if you store just a scalar and split as needed rather than storing an array). If you need to search by other fields also, take a look at one of the AnyData modules. Or maybe you just want to split into a hash:

my @fields = qw(name num1 num2);

open(IN, "<$mailer_data_location");
while (<IN>) {
  chomp;
  my %data;
  my @data{@foo} = split /\|/, $_;
  print $_ if $data{name} eq 'Bill';
  # Save array of hashes
  push @AoH, \%data;
  # Or just save array of values
  push @array, [ split /\|/, $_ ];
}
close(IN);
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