#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w

  use strict;
  use warnings;
  open(FILE, "+<height.txt") || die "file can't be opened";

  my @file = <FILE>;         # Read entire file into array
  map{ s/'/\t/g } @file;     # substitution on each element
  seek(FILE,0,0);            # go back to the beginning of the file
  truncate(FILE, tell(FILE)) # truncate from here to end of file
  print FILE @file;          # write back to file

  close FILE;