The number of variables for each column will change from record to record.

This sample script tries to demonstrate what I am trying to do. Keep in mind, I am not an experienced Perl scripter and am trying to keep this simple.

#!C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe

use Strict;
use Warnings;


@users = (
  "UserID001|user1|password1|Fred|",
  "UserID002|user2|password2|George|",
  "UserID003|user3|password3|Mike|");

@admin = (
  "AdminID001|admin1|password1|Joe|1|",
  "AdminID002|admin2|password2|Frank|1|",
  "AdminID003|admin3|password3|Carl|2|");


($usernamesRef
 ,$passwordsRef
 ,$displaynamesRef)
 = arrayToMultiHash (\@users); # @users contains 3 columns besides Use
+rID
  %usernames = %{$usernamesRef};
  %passwords = %{$passwordsRef};
  %displaynames = %{$displaynamesRef};

($adminUsernamesRef
 ,$adminPasswordsRef
 ,$adminDisplaynamesRef
 ,$adminAccessLevelsRef)
 = arrayToMultiHash (\@admin); # @admin contains 4 columns besides Adm
+inID
  %adminUsernames = %{$adminUsernamesRef};
  %adminPasswords = %{$adminPasswordsRef};
  %adminDisplaynames = %{$adminDisplaynamesRef};
  %adminAccessLevels = %{$adminAccessLevelsRef};


print "User: $displaynames{'UserID002'} | $usernames{'UserID002'}\n";
print "Admin: $adminDisplaynames{'AdminID002'} | $adminUsernames{'Admi
+nID002'};




sub arrayToMultiHash
{
  my @array = @{$_[0]};
  my @hashRefs;  

  foreach $line (@array)
  {
    my @lineInfo = split (/\|/,$line);
    my $key = shift (@lineInfo);
    my $i = 0;
    foreach $value (@lineInfo)
    {
      my $hashName = "hash$i";
      $hashName{$key} = $value;
      $i++;
    }
  }
  
  foreach (0..$i)
  {
    my $hashName = "hash$i";
    push (@hashRefs,\%{$hashName});
  }

  return (@hashRefs);
}
[download]

Should print:

User: George | user2
Admin: Frank | admin2