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Back in the days when I didn't have access to databases, I used to write everything to flatfiles. This sub opens a delimited CSV file and takes the column names from the first line (which gets choped off) then it rolls through using the 1st row as a "primary key".

An example of what a database file might be (tab delimited):

PEOPLE    CARS    CAR_COLORS    AGES
John    Volks    avocado    26
Mira    Fiat (yuck)    black    25
Mom    Twingo    cherry    50
[download]

I haven't used it for a long time, but maybe someone has comments or even has a use for it...

my @columns = OpenFlatFile('TEST')
  or warn('file missing, unaccessible or empty');


foreach (keys %{$columns[0]}) { 
# might as well have said 'keys %PEOPLE'

  print "$PEOPLE{$_} drives a $CAR_COLORS{$_} $CARS{$_} and is $AGES{$
+_} years old.\n"
  
}

sub OpenFlatFile {

  my ($datfile) = $_[0];
  my $delimiter = "\t";
  my $val;

  open(FILE,$datfile) or return(0);
  my @tmp = <FILE>;
  close(FILE);
  
  my $head = shift(@tmp);
  chop $head;
  
  @{$datfile} = split($delimiter,$head);

  foreach (@tmp) {
    my $x = 0;
    chop;
    my @line = split($delimiter,$_);
    foreach $val (@{$datfile}) {
      if ((! defined ${$val}{$line[0]}) && 
          ($line[$x] ne '')) {
        ${$val}{$line[0]} = $line[$x];
      }
      ++$x;
    }
  }
  return(@{$datfile});
}
[download]

In reply to Open Flat File by BBQ

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