I like the autovivification in 5.6.0:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

{
    my %file_handle;
    while (<DATA>) {
        my ($id, $category, $sub_category, $code, $description, $pictu
+re) =
             split /\|/;
        # massage data into a printable string

        $file_handle{$sub_category} ||= get_handle($sub_category);

        print {$file_handle{$sub_category}} "something\n";
    }
}   # As %file_handle goes out of scope
    #   all file handles close implicitly

sub get_handle {
    my $file_name = shift;
    open my $fh, '>', $file_name or die "Cannot write to $file_name: $
+!";
    return $fh;
}


__END__
0|OFFICE EQUIPPMENT|PEN|PDS01|an ordinary pen|pen.gif
1|OFFICE EQUIPPMENT|PEN|PDS02|another pen|pen2.gif
2|OFFICE EQUIPPMENT|PAPER|PA003|white sheets to write on|paper.gif
3|OFFICE EQUIPPMENT|PEN|PDD50|the greatest pen|pen50.gif
4|OFFICE EQUIPPMENT|PEN|PDS01|an ordinary pen|pen.gif

[download]

HTH,
Charles K. Clarkson

In reply to Re: About Filehandles by CharlesClarkson
in thread About Filehandles by Chady

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.