As f00li5h pointed out, the best approach would be to use a templating module.

To pick up where he left off and provide an example of how you can use split to separate your input data, I submit the following code: 

use strict;
use warnings;

my $_mergeFields = "##fname##;##lname##;##email##;##phone##;";

my $_list_to_send_to = "Richard;Smith;myemail\@testmail.com;8005551212
+;|Toby;Johnson;email2\@testmail.com;8885551212|Chanty;Perkins;another
+\@test.com;8665551212;";

my $_message = qq~
Hello ##fname## how are you today? Hopefully your day is going well. I
+ am the list server for some company, blah blah blah, and I have list
+ed your phone number as ##phone##. Well, here is all the data I have 
+for you:

Name: ##fname## ##lname##
Phone: ##phone##
email: ##email##

So I just wanted to say thank you for signing up yesterday to get emai
+ls from us, and if you don't want to receive any more just click the 
+link below and we won't send any more out. blah blah ~;

my @fields = split( ';', $_mergeFields );
my @recipients = split( '\|', $_list_to_send_to );

foreach my $recipient ( @recipients )
{
    my @recip_data = split( ';', $recipient );
    my $recip_msg = $_message;

    foreach my $field ( @fields )
    {
        my $value = shift @recip_data;
        $recip_msg =~ s/$field/$value/g;
    }

    print $recip_msg, "\n\n";
}

[download]

Note: Don't use this in production - use a templating module.

In reply to Re: merging two fields of data into one hash or array by bobf
in thread merging two fields of data into one hash or array by Anonymous Monk

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