At first glance, here's how I would approach your problem:

#! /usr/bin/perl
use strict ;
use warnings ;
$|++ ;

# First, read the data file into an array.
open SCHOOLS, 'schools.dat' or die "Cannot open file: $!" ;
chomp( my @rows = <SCHOOLS> ) ;

# Next, rip each row into an array ref of fields, making a 2d array.
my @table = map { [ split /\|/ ] } @rows ;

# Last, test out the function.
print "ID 4 matches " . get_schoolname( 4 ) . "\n" ;
print "ID 3 matches " . get_schoolname( 3 ) . "\n" ;
print "ID 2 matches " . get_schoolname( 2 ) . "\n" ;
print "ID 1 matches " . get_schoolname( 1 ) . "\n" ;

sub get_schoolname
{
    my $id = shift ;
    for ( @table )
    {
        return $_->[1] if $id == $_->[0] ;
    }
}

exit ;
[download]

A couple of things to consider:

• This function returns as soon as it finds an ID match. If there's a lot of records in your data file, and there's some that are accessed more frequently than others, it would be advantageous to have those close to the top of the table.
• If you are always going to be looking up your data by ID, you might want to put the data into a hash, rather than a 2d array. This will simplify your lookups quite a bit.

Hope that helps...

_______________
DamnDirtyApe

Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who
would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity.
            --Friedrich Nietzsche

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