Report Generation using perl

Hello...

I am developing an application in perl to generate reports based
on the database entries.
At present I use the following way.

open (FILE,">>$filename") || die "report:$!\n";
format FILE=
@<<<<< @<<<< ^<<<<<<<<<<<<
$item1,$item2,$description
~~ ^<<<<<<<<<<< $description
.
write FILE;
close FILE;

But then there is a problem. Depending on the font used
the alignment is changing. Is there any other way of generating
reports. I would have preferred ways using simple "\t and \n".
But then the $description which might contain a few lines would
be aligned in a very bad way.

Could you please provide a better solution.

Thanks in advance..
Dups

Hi Dups,

Firstly, you need to use "or" in place of "||" before your die on the open for operator precedence reasons.

Are you formatting for a terminal, web or what?