[Sderby] PERL

[Mike Hemstock]

Folks,

A quick question.  I am trying to write a PERL script to open a file, read 
values from it and rebuild those vaules into another file to be used by a 
piece of software.  An extract from the file is below:

a.adams.DADIESO SEC. SCH. - DADIESO.
a.adigah.ACHISCO.
a.agyapong-ntra.OPON MEM SEC. SCH..
a.amoah.EFUTU SEC. TECH.

The first part of the line is an initial, the second is a surname and the 
third is a school.  I can read the data into a variable line by line, but 
want I can't figure out how to do it take that line and extract the three 
pieces of information and assign them to a variable eg. after reading the 
first line into $_ I would then like:

$initial = "a"
$surname = "adams"
$school = "DADIESO SEC. SCH. - DADIESO"

I'd also like to drop the . off the end of each line.  Some lines have two 
dots but that's OK, just need to drop one of them.

Many thanks,
Mike who can't code very well!