How would you do the (first part) if your tools were a printout of the notepad data source, a pencil, sharp knife, and a set of baskets into which to sort the data? Write it out. That's tantamount to the first part of the answer you've asked for.

Then you'll be ready to start reading (studying!) the list below.

Those are essential preparations before you start writing your code (and you should not expect the Monks to provide a script to do your [$work/project/homework] -- if, for no other reason -- that that will teach you very little... and teaching is a major reason for the existence of the Monastery).

So here's some reading:

• perldoc perlintro
• PM Tutorials on IO
• perldoc open
• perldoc perlio
• Database Tutorials
• DBI recipes

Those including the word "perldoc" are available on almost every computer with Perl installed. Simply type the listed phrase at your command prompt.

And good luck on an exciting endeavor.