Hello, it looks like you may need to create an array of hashes, one hash for each $line. That way you get to keep all of your records.

my @information;

open(IN,"<$file");
while(<IN>)
{
    my $line = $_;
    chomp $line;
    my($lastname, $firstname, $country, $language) = split('\|', $line
+);
    #print"$lastname, $firstname, $country, $language\n";

    push @information, {
        'lastname'  => $lastname,
        'firstname' => $firstname,
        'country'   => $country,
        'language'  => $language,
    }
}
[download]

Update: I made a typo in the code, so I fixed it.