On the other hand, if other people need to be able to work with the data, or if there are millions of records, or if I need to do complex queries like "WHERE city = 'this' AND Status LIKE '%that%', it's probably worth the time to put it into a real database.

An in-between approach would be to use a simple CSV file, since it sounds like there aren't that many entries, but to access it as if it were a database using DBD::CSV. It's then readable and treatable like a text file, and can be easily imported into spreadsheets, but you don't have to roll your own searches through the CSV.

I like this:
but;


#!/usr/bin/perl
    use strict;
    use warnings;
    use DBI;

    # Connect to the database, (the directory containing our csv file(
+s))

    my $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:CSV:f_dir=.;csv_eol=\n;");

    # Associate our csv file with the table name 'prospects' and
    # manually declare names for each of the columns

    $dbh->{'csv_tables'}->{'prospects.csv'} = {
            'col_names' => ["name", "address", "floors", "donated", "c
+ontact"]
    };

    # Output the name and number of floors using our column names

    my $sth = $dbh->prepare("SELECT * FROM prospects.csv WHERE name LI
+KE 'G%'");
    $sth->execute();
    while (my $row = $sth->fetchrow_hashref) {
        print("name = ", $row->{'name'},
              ",   Number of floors = ", $row->{'floors'}, "\n");
    }
    $sth->finish();
[download]


This code is from "http://perlmeme.org/tutorials/parsing_csv.html". But running it gives this:


DBD::CSV::st execute failed: Error 2034 while reading file /media/Micr
+oSD/code/prospects.csv: EIF - Loose unescaped quote at /usr/local/sha
+re/perl/5.14.2/SQL/Statement.pm line 1055
 [for Statement "SELECT * FROM prospects.csv WHERE name LIKE 'G%'"] at
+ propects.pl line 20.
DBD::CSV::st fetchrow_hashref failed: Attempt to fetch row without a p
+receeding execute () call or from a non-SELECT statement [for Stateme
+nt "SELECT * FROM prospects.csv WHERE name LIKE 'G%'"] at propects.pl
+ line 21.
[download]

Try playing with different ways to connect. Your CSV does not comply to minimal CSV rules, so you'd have to loosen them or complain to the author/generator of the CSV file.

my $dbh = DBI->connect ("dbi:CSV:", undef, undef, {
    f_dir                  => ".",      # Not needed, is default
    f_ext                  => ".csv/r", # advisable
    f_encoding             => "utf-8",  # probably needed

    csv_eol                => "\n",     # NOT needed!

    csv_allow_loose_quotes => 1,        # You /might/ need this
    csv_allow_whitespace   => 1,        # OR this

    RaiseError             => 1,        # Always a good option!
    PrintError             => 1,        # Also a good choice
    });
[download]

Look into the Text::CSV_XS documentation for what other csv_ options are allowed.

FWIW, I will release a new DBD::CSV later today.


Enjoy, Have FUN! H.Merijn

Watch for leading spaces in your file.