# work around

my $column_list=foofile.txt
my $table_fieldname_list=`cat $column_list|xargs|sed -e 's/ /'"'"','"'"'/g'`;

print "see what it looks like: $table_fieldname_list\n";
$table_fieldname_list= "('" . $table_fieldname_list;
$table_fieldname_list = $table_fieldname_list . "')";
print "concatenatd table list $table_fieldname_list\n";

# ends up 
#('FIELD1','FIELD2','FIELDN
#  ')


##</code><code>##

# Perl code that can be enhanced?
my $column_list=foofile.txt
open (my $fh,"<","$column_list")
 or die "cannot open < $column_list: $!";
my @table_fieldname_array = <$fh>;

# see what it looks like print "field array @table_fieldname_array\n";

# do something to the array for example
foreach my $attr_name (@table_fieldname_array ) {
        $field_list .= $attr_name . ",";
    }
print "the result is the array on separate lines with a trailing , ...not useful yet @table_fieldname_array\n";