You probably want to be using split. This takes a string and splits it into an array of strings, breaking it up on a specified delimiter. For example:

my $data = "f1|f2|f3|f4|f5";

my @data = split /|/, $data;

print $data[2], "\n";  # prints f3, of course- arrays start on 0.
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Or, using array slices:

my $data = "f1|f2|f3|f4|f5";

my ($clliA, $clliZ) = (split /|/, $d)[1,3];
# $clliA = "f2"
# $clliZ = "f4"
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Fun fun fun...

Alan

update: Yikes, everyone beat me to it... oops.