#!/usr/local/bin/perl5 

#I'll call this snippet exfields.pl as in  "EXtractFIELDS"

#zcat command for gzipped files 

$gzcatcmd="gunzip -c"; # I'll need this eventually

# Input parameters

$RegExp     = "";      # Default no regexp
$MatchFld   = "";      # Default no field match
$LastHdr    = "";      # Last read header line
$DbFSplit = ' ';  # Need this form for split
$DbOFSep = ' ';   # Default output field delimiter 
$VBarDel = 0;     # Flag default not splitting by vertical bar
($progname = $0) =~  s/^.*\/([^\/*]+)$/$1/;  # name of this program 

while (@ARGV) {
    $Param = shift @ARGV;
    if ($Param eq "-s") {
	$RegExp = shift @ARGV;     # Search expression
    } elsif ($Param eq "-f") {
	$MatchFld = shift @ARGV;   # Search field specifier
    } elsif ($Param eq "-e") {
	$FList = shift @ARGV;      # field extract list
   } elsif ($Param =~ /^\-/) {
	&ErrorExit; #I'll define this later; you get the point
    } else {
	push @FileList,$Param;
    }
}
# Flag to substitute for whitespace if the new field delimiter 
#includes whitespace and the old one did not. The assumption is 
#that if the old delimiter included whitespace, we do not need 
#to convert existing whitespace in fields. May be modified by 
# #DFD declaration..

if (($DbOFSep =~ /^ +$/) &&
    ($DbFSplit !~ /^ +$/)){
    $FixSpaces = 'Y';  # can't have Null fields or whitespace
} else {
    $FixSpaces = '';   # can't have Null fields or whitespace
}

@OrigFields = split(',',$FList);
unless (@FileList) {push @FileList,"-";}

	print " @FileList\n";

##</code><code>##

</CODE
If you run this:
<CODE>
exfields.pl -e Name,Rank,SerialNumber file.gz

##</code><code>##

Name,Rank,SerialNumber

##</code><code>##


##</code><code>##


##</code><code>##

exfields.pl -e Name,Rank,SerialNumber file.gz | Who,What,Where anotherfile.gz

##</code><code>##

print "@FileList_1\n";   #prints "Name" "Rank" SerialNumber"
print "@FileList_2\n";   #prints "Who" "What" "Where"