A '|' or pipe is an 'or' in a regex. Escape it in your split.

erickn@isfe:/home/erickn> cat x
use Data::Dumper;

$record = 'one|two|three|4|5|six';
print "$record\n";
@record = split /\|/, $record;
print Dumper \@record;
[download]

erickn@isfe:/home/erickn> perl x
one|two|three|4|5|six
$VAR1 = [
          'one',
          'two',
          'three',
          '4',
          '5',
          'six'
        ];
[download]