11811   NAME1   AGE1   LOCATION1   12156   NAME2   AGE2   LOCATION2   17899   NAME3   AGE3   LOCATION3 ... and so on      

##</code><code>##

open(DAT,"C:\\StudyPerl\\Projects\\tab_file.txt") || die "Could not open the file";
my @line;
my @array1;

while(<DAT>){
	@line = split(/\t/,$_);
	$array1[0]=$line[0];
	$array1[1]=$line[1];
	$array1[2]=$line[2];
	$array1[3]=$line[3];
}

foreach $1 (@array1){
	print "The element is: $1\n";
}