$ cat pm_11140211_flatfile.dat head1|head2|head3 val1|val2|val3 val1|val4|val5 val6|val4|val5 val2|val7|val5 val3|val7|val3 #### $ perl -e ' use Data::Dump; my %x = (a => 1, b => 3, c => 4); my %y = (b => 2, c => 3, d => 4); my %z = (%x, %y); dd \%z; ' { a => 1, b => 2, c => 3, d => 4 } #### #!/usr/bin/env perl use strict; use warnings; use autodie; use Text::CSV; my $infile = 'pm_11140211_flatfile.dat'; my $csv = Text::CSV::->new({sep_char => '|'}); open my $in_fh, '<', $infile; my $row = {}; my @cols = @{$csv->getline($in_fh)}; $csv->bind_columns(\@{$row}{@cols}); my %data = map +($_, {}), @cols; while ($csv->getline($in_fh)) { $data{$_} = { %{$data{$_}}, $row->{$_}, 1 } for @cols; } print "$_: ", join(', ', sort keys %{$data{$_}}), "\n" for sort @cols; #### head1: val1, val2, val3, val6 head2: val2, val4, val7 head3: val3, val5