Usage:

# build the database
 % the_script -b

# generate flashcards
 % the_script

# generate flashcards and keep the umlauts
 % the_script -u

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use Getopt::Std;
use DB_File;

my %opt;
my $dbpath = 'Lernkarte.db';
getopts('b', \%opt);
if( $opt{b} ){
    tie my %db, 'DB_File', $dbpath, O_CREAT | O_WRONLY, 0644, $DB_BTRE
+E;
    open my $handle, 'ger-eng.txt';
    my $count = 0;
    while(<$handle>){
        chomp;
        next if /^#/;
        $db{$count++} = $_;
    }
    untie %db;
}
else {
    tie my %db, 'DB_File', $dbpath, O_RDONLY, 0644, $DB_BTREE;
    my $size = scalar keys %db;
    do {
        my @entry = split / :: /, $db{int rand $size};
        eval "require Lingua::DE::ASCII";
        ($opt{u} || $@ ) and my $keep_umlaut = 1;
        my @de = split / \| /, $entry[0];
        my @en = split / \| /, $entry[1];
        print "-----\n";
        foreach ( 0..$#de ) {
            print <<FLASHCARD
DE => ${$keep_umlaut ? \$de[$_] : \Lingua::DE::ASCII::to_ascii( $de[$_
+])}
EN => $en[$_]

FLASHCARD
        }
    }while(<>);
    untie %db;
}
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