Here's something i've been using for quite a while:

sub make_select_query {
    my ($table, $select_fields, $conditions) = @_;

    my $query = "SELECT ";

    if ( defined $select_fields ) {
        if ( ref($select_array) eq "ARRAY" ) {
            $query .= join ",", @$select_array;
        }
        else {
            $query .= $select_fields;
        }
    }
    else {
        $query .= "\*";
    }

    $query .= " FROM " . $table;

    # only put the where and conditions in the query string
    # if conditions are present
    if (keys %$conditions) {
        $query .=  " WHERE ";

        foreach my $key (keys %$conditions) {
            push @conds, $key . "=\'" . $conditions->{$key} . "\'";
        }
    }
    $query .= join " and ", @conds;

    return $query;
}
[download]

Of course this has a number of shortcomings, such as:
All conditions use equality. This could be worked around by having a condition hash like this instead:

    ...
    $condtions = {
        "age"   =>   " >= 21 ",
        "sex"   =>   " = female ",
    };
[download]

But this is leading down the path that the more complicated your need, the less likely there will be a general solution that does exactly what you need.

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