"... just an example I gave. The real files are not ..."

The last two paragraphs that I wrote were intended to convey the idea that I understood this.

"I'm still learning (and eager to learn) the language of Perl ..."

Well, you've certainly come to the right place. :-)

"... and I'm realizing I still have a long way to go."

It shouldn't be too hard to get a handle on the basics. Take a look at perlintro: as well as having those "basics" on that page, it is also peppered with links to additional information and advanced topics (I'd suggest following these as the need arises rather than trying to learn it all at once).

"... automatic [whatever] code generation ..."

Perl is an excellent language for this type of task. You can also generate Perl code; here's a rough example of one way you could do this:

my $generated_function = generate_function(...);
$generated_function->();

sub generate_function {
    ...
    return sub { ... };
}
[download]

You might also find "Template Toolkit" is worth a look.