#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
while(<DATA>){
        chomp;
   next unless /^([^\|]+)/;
   print "$1\n";
}
__DATA__
category1
category1|subcat1
category1|subcat1|subcat1
category1|subcat1|subcat2
category1|subcat1|subcat3
category1|subcat2
category1|subcat2|subcat1
category2

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What does this have to do with MySQL? 
-- 
Joost       downtime n. The period during which a system
            is error-free and immune from user input.

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In reply to Re: Extract data from pipe delimited text by Joost
in thread Extract data from pipe delimited text by Anonymous Monk

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