Let's assume for the sake of argument that you want to create a CSV (comma-separated-value) file. The approach is to iterate through the lines of the flat-file database, converting each record into the desired otuput format (CSV).

Iterating through the lines of a file is fairly simple, just let perl's <> operator open the file for you:

# loop through every file named on the command line, setting
# $_ to each successive line
while (<>) {
  chomp;  # remove any line ending (implicitly uses $_)

  # ... aha! the interesting part goes here
  my @fields = split /\|/;  # implicitly uses $_

  # Now we have the values for this row in $fields[0], $fields[1], ...

  # write to STDOUT
  print join( ',', @fields ), "\n";
}
[download]

BTW, exclusive of anything related to Perl, Excel should be able to import this format directly (just name the file with a '.txt' extension and useExcel's Import Wizard), but I suspect that is not what you are asking.

Of course, you could simply translate '|' (pipe) characters into ',' (commas), but I suspect that, too, is not the point of your question.

dmm

You can give a man a fish and feed him for a day ...
Or, you can teach him to fish and feed him for a lifetime