MySQL Forums :: Newbie :: Creating a forum website using Perl and SQL - question

Hey guys. I have chosen to do design a forum for a class project. It is a Perl class, so I have to use Perl, but I am going to be using SQL for this too. I just need a point in the right direction here...

My question is: When I do something like build a forum using SQL database back end, is it ideal to store the variables that contain a user's new post in an SQL record or what. I ask this because someone could write a long message with spaces and paragraphs which I would want to preserve. Is it ideal to store the user's post in an SQL record or is there a different way to handle this? for example: writing to a simple text file.

Any input is welcomed