Sorry for my delayed reply, I've been very busy.. Thank you for your replies, they gave me ideas and I have solved my problem!
Pseudo code

    for($i = 0; $i < scalar($#file +1); $i++)  {
    foreach  ($file[$i])     {    # <-- this is what solves it!
            chomp; ($stuff, $more_stuff) = split(/\|/);
            # ...
        }
    }
[download]

I didn't really need to create a new object for each data entry.. although it would have been a nice experiment, I found an easier way of doing what I wanted.
Thanks very much for your support, I appreciate it.

~Shibby