In general, if your question includes the word 'database', you should be thinking DBI. There's a great book on it called Programming the Perl DBI.

in short the DBI is a database independant interface for Perl that allows you to interact with anything from a CSV file to DB2 on a mainframe ( if you're that wealthy ) and everything in between. It would allow to pull data, manipulate it and put it back in.

"sometimes when you make a request for the head you don't
want the big, fat body...don't you go snickering."
                                         -- Nathan Torkington UoP2K a.k.a gnat