For your basic data structure, your search term (on this site and on Google, if you want more general information) is "flat file database"

For how to find the line with the field you want to edit, your search phrases are: "find a specific line in a file", and more generally, "regular expressions"

For how to edit that file in-place, see How do I change a single line in a file?.

With respect to more advanced solutions, look into DB_File and/or MLDBM such things will let you manipulate a perl hash (see : the basic datatypes, three) which is stored on disk as if it were in memory.

Philosophy can be made out of anything. Or less -- Jerry A. Fodor


In reply to Re: Im in trouble, deep.... by arturo
in thread Im in trouble, deep.... by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.