Counting lines in a file is pretty easy, too. You can slurp them all into an array (if the file is small) and evaluate the array in scalar context. Otherwise, you can loop through the entire file, line by line, and use the special variable $.. The modules named above may have their own mechanisms for doing this.

Update: Stuff the results into an array, that way you won't have to worry about it. Otherwise, you can count the number of pipes in a line with the simple: my $numpipes = $line =~ tr/\|//;

Thank you, but I already am using the split command, and what I really need is for it to be able to figure out how many variables it needs to put data into per line. any help?
Andy

There are a bunch of different ways: count the number of pipes in the line, and add one. You can use tr/|// for this (returns the number of |s).

Second way store the results from split in an array:

my @parts = split /\|/, $line;
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Perl will grab all the bits there are to grab. As chromatic mentioned, you can evaluate that array in scalar context to find out how many parts there are. You can also use a list assignment to nab, say, only the first five:

my ($first, $second, $third, $fourth, $fifth, undef) = split /\|/, $st
+ring,6;
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HTH

perl -e 'print "How sweet does a rose smell? "; chomp ($n = <STDIN>); 
+$rose = "smells sweet to degree $n"; *other_name = *rose; print "$oth
+er_name\n"'
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use strict;
use vars qw/ $lines $blah1 $blah2 $blah3 /;

sub count_lines {
    $lines = 0; 
    open(FILE, "filename");
    while(<FILE>) {        
        $lines += ($_ =~ tr/\n//);
    }
    print "$lines lines in filename\n";
    close (FILE);
}

sub breakup_lines {
    open(FILE, "filename");
    while(<FILE>) {
        ($blah1,$blah2,$blah3) = split(/\|/, $_);
        ## do something with the blahs
    }
    close (FILE);
}
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also you may want to check out these nodes: Another flatfile thingy & Poor Person's Database and how could we forget the Super Search?

Update: I see you don't know how many columns you are going to have. so instead use

sub breakup_lines {
    open(FILE, "filename");
    while(<FILE>) {
        push @blah, (split /\|/);
        ## do something with the @blah
    }
    close (FILE);
}
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then you can do whatever with @blah (oh and add @blah to the vars statement at the top.)

-p

use Text::CSV_XS;
my $csv = Text::CSV_XS->new({
    'quote_char'  => '"',
    'escape_char' => '"',
    'sep_char'    => '|',
    'binary'      => 1
});

while my $line (<YOURFILE>) {
    if ($csv->parse($line)) {
        my @field = $csv->fields;
        my $count = 0;
        for $column (@field) {
            print ++$count, " => ", $column, "\n";
        }
        print "\n";
    } else {
        my $err = $csv->error_input;
        print "parse() failed on argument: ", $err, "\n";
    }
}
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See perldoc perlfunc for open, close, split and scalar, then perldoc perlop for the diamond operator, <>.

Update: You don't need seperate variables for the db line fields, split returns an array: my @ary = split /\|/;

After Compline,
Zaxo

#!/jpsama/bin/perl -w
$tks = `mount`;
$jpsama = $! if $!;
print $jpsama;