You might want to try something like....

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

  use strict;

  my $in = "/home/trix/test";
  my $out = "/home/trix/out";

  open IN, "$in" || die "$!\n";
  open OUT, ">$out" || die "$!\n";


while (<IN>){
    chop;
    my (@temp_array) = split( /\s/, $_);
    if ($#temp_array == 9){ #10 elements
        my @keeper_array = @temp_array[3 .. 9];
    } else { # 9 elements
        my @keeper_array = (@temp_array[3 .. 7], "whatever your filler
+ is", $temp_array[8]);
    }
}
[download]

Update Misunderstood the basic question...

But let's assume you are using dbi for a moment... You might have something like..

$sql_statement = qq|insert into log_table
    (field1, field2, field3, field4, field5, field6)
    VALUES
    (?,?,?,?,?,?)|;
$sth{'6'} = $dbh->prepare($sql_statement);

$sql_statement = qq|insert into log_table
    (field1, field2, field3, field4, field5, field6, field7)
    VALUES
    (?,?,?,?,?,?,?)|;
$sth{'7'} = $dbh->prepare($sql_statement);

$sql_statement = qq|insert into log_table
    (field1, field2, field3, field4, field5, field6, field7, field8)
    VALUES
    (?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?)|;
$sth{'8'} = $dbh->prepare($sql_statement);
[download]

Then you while thing would do something like...

while (<IN>){
    chop;
    my ($waste, $wastea, @temp_array) = split;
    my $rv = $sth{$#temp_array+1}->execute(@temp_array);
}
[download]

Regardless of how you do it, you would need to be able to predict *something* about the incoming data either based on the number of elements or on something you could match in the data.

EEjack