Re^3: flat file databases

[Zero_Flop]

This may not be a popular solution, but if your files are a decent size you could use a hash.

Read each line of the data file and split on the first tab. Turn this into a hash with the ID as the key and the remaining of the line as the data for the hash. (You could also use a hash of arrays)

Now you can load the update file, line by line.
Turn the line into an array.
Use the first array entry as the hash key to get the hash data.
Create the new hash data string from the update data.
Update the Data Hash.
Read next line from update file.

You end up with an updated hash. Now print that back to the file.