while (<DATA>) {
  chomp;
  push @record, [split(/,/, $_, -1)];
}

##</code><code>##

use strict;
use Carp;
# Time passes...
sub read_csv {
  my $file = shift;
  local *CSV;
  open (CSV, $file) or confess("Cannot read '$file': $!");
  my $header = <CSV>;
  chomp($header);
  my @fields = split /,/, $header;
  # You could do an error check for repeated field names...
  my @data;
  while (<CSV>) {
    chomp;
    my $row;
    @$row{@fields} = split(/,/, $_, -1);
    push @data, $row;
  }
  return @data;
}