a) Ack, what I the name of all that is holy takes 1200 lines of SQL? IANASG, but good god, that's a lot of stuff man!

b) Nope, not uml, just a plain ole' flow chart. UML is more a class inheritance/interface kinda thing. Java guys like it, so you know...

c) Doesn't the name kinda give it away? $pipecount get the scalar return value of tr, which is the number of things it translated, namely pipe chars, and since there is no translation rule, tr will just leave them alone (or maybe just blindly exchange them for the same thing, not really sure)

which brings me to
d) Camel is your friend, fellow monks are your other friends. Bog through, and if you get stuck, ask with some nice snipets.

which brings me to
e) This will probably a rather time consumeing endeavor, so if it really is your job on the line, it may be hack now, understand a little later time.

Good luck, hope it isn't really your job on the line (Not that I think it's impossible or you can't do it, but I know it wouldn't help me work if it was)

'The fickle fascination of and Everlasting God' - Billy Corgan, The Smashing Pumpkins