# tie your array to the file
tie @chat, 'DB_File', 'chat', O_CREAT | O_RDWR, 0644, $DB_RECNO;
# push the message info onto the array
push @chat, "Message number $_" for (1 ..20);
# print the last five messages
print join "\n", @chat[-5 .. -1];
__END__
output:
Message number 16
Message number 17
Message number 18
Message number 19
Message number 20