in reply to Biggest file?

CSV and formatted Excel spreadsheet files of up to 5 MB. All containing insurance claims data and each insurance company uses its own format. The files get parsed by some Perl-scripts into a standard format which goes to the database.

Otherwise a variety of small Excel spreadsheets (a few hundred rows at the most) too small and too much prone to change to warrant a proper database to be made for it: the data in these spreadsheets is used to produce insurance certificates, extracts of cover, ... thanks to Template::Toolkit and LaTeX.

CountZero

A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a string of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little or too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity." - The Tao of Programming, 4.1 - Geoffrey James

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom