well i had tried the DBI::CSV before i posted this question and i did the same thing you say here BUT when i try to use the DISTINCT in my SQL it does not seem to return the desired result?

Here is what i had:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

use DBI;

my $dbh = DBI->connect(
           "DBI:CSV:f_dir=/export/home/temp;csv_eol=\n;csv_sep_char=!;
+",
                      {RaiseError=>1},
                              );

$dbh->{'csv_tables'}->{'datainfo'} = {
        'file' => 'datainfo.data',
#       'sep_char' => "!",
        'quote_char' => undef,
        'escape_char' => undef,
        'col_names' => ["id", "class", "name", "instructor"]

        };


my ($query) = "select distinct id, class from datainfo ";
my ($sth) = $dbh->prepare($query);
$sth->execute();

while (my $row = $sth->fetchrow_hashref) {
        print ("ID =",  $row->{'id'}, "\n\t CLASS = ", $row->{'class'}
+, "\n");
}
print "\n";
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you know i just say a mistake in my code, and when i tried to run it with just one column in the select it ran correctly! I wonder if DBI::CSV does allow mutilple columns to be listed with a DISTINCT