PEOPLE	CARS	CAR_COLORS	AGES
John	Volks	avocado	26
Mira	Fiat (yuck)	black	25
Mom	Twingo	cherry	50

##</code><code>##

my @columns = OpenFlatFile('TEST')
  or warn('file missing, unaccessible or empty');


foreach (keys %{$columns[0]}) { 
# might as well have said 'keys %PEOPLE'

  print "$PEOPLE{$_} drives a $CAR_COLORS{$_} $CARS{$_} and is $AGES{$_} years old.\n"
  
}

sub OpenFlatFile {

  my ($datfile) = $_[0];
  my $delimiter = "\t";
  my $val;

  open(FILE,$datfile) or return(0);
  my @tmp = <FILE>;
  close(FILE);
  
  my $head = shift(@tmp);
  chop $head;
  
  @{$datfile} = split($delimiter,$head);

  foreach (@tmp) {
    my $x = 0;
    chop;
    my @line = split($delimiter,$_);
    foreach $val (@{$datfile}) {
      if ((! defined ${$val}{$line[0]}) && 
          ($line[$x] ne '')) {
        ${$val}{$line[0]} = $line[$x];
      }
      ++$x;
    }
  }
  return(@{$datfile});
}