sub OpenFF {

    my %hash;
    my ($file,$dlmt) = @_;
    $dlmt = "\t" if ! $_[1];
	
    open(READ,$file) or return(0);
    my @file = <READ>;
    chomp(@file);
    close(READ);
	
    my @headers = split($dlmt,shift(@file));
	 
    foreach my $line (@file) {
        my $x = 0;
        my @columns = split($dlmt,$line);
        while ($x < scalar @headers) {
            $hash{$headers[$x++]}{$columns[0]} = $columns[$x];
        }	
    }
    return(%hash);
}

##</code><code>##

foo.txt
-------
ID	NAME1	NAME2	AGE
1	donald	duck	50
2	mickey	mouse	48
3	peter	pan	62
4	madre	theresa	108
5	banana	split	2
##</code><code>##

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my %foo = OpenFF('foo.txt')
	or die("Couldn't parse foo.txt, $!\n");

print "The keys are:\n";
print join("\t",keys %foo)."\n";

print "Row 3 is:\n";
foreach (qw'ID	NAME1	NAME2	AGE') {
	print "$foo{$_}{'3'}\t";
}

print "Column 'NAME2' is:\n";
foreach (1..5) {
	print "$foo{'NAME2'}{$_}\n";
}
##</code><code>##

The keys are:
NAME1	NAME2	ID	AGE
Row 3 is:
3	peter	pan	62	
Column 'NAME2' is:
duck
mouse
pan
theresa
split