The Tie::File module will do exactly what you want. The only thing that I would draw your special attention to is the flock method, which you'll need to call in order lock the file.

    my @a;
    my $o = tie @a, "Tie::File", $filename;
    $o->flock;

    # find and delete the first record with the given key val
    for my $i ( 0 .. $#a ) {
        my( $id2, $status, $fromemail, $eform ) = split /\|/, $a[$i];
        if ( $id2 eq $id_to_remove ) {
            splice @a, $i, 1;
            last;
        }
    }
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jdporter
The 6th Rule of Perl Club is -- There is no Rule #6.