you don't need the line number to access the info in your db, but this should work for you.

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);
}
[download]

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);
}
[download]

.

then you can do whatever with @blah (oh and add @blah to the vars statement at the top.)

-p