Name,Cost,Inventory
pickles,2.99,12
vegemite,4.00,8
nuclear sub,22.50,4

##</code><code>##

open IN, "MyCSV.csv" or die "Cannot open input file: $!\n";

my ($line, @colNames, $size, %columns, $j);
$j = 0;

chomp($line =<IN>);

# Read the column header
@colNames = split(',',$line);
$size = scalar @colNames;

while($line = <IN>)
{
	chomp($line);
	push @{$columns{$colNames[$j++ % $size]}}, $_ for(split(',', $line));
}

# Now I can play with whole columns of data by name
print “Total Inventory = ”, List::Util::sum(@{$columns{'Inventory'}}), “\n”;
print “Total Cost = ” , List::Util::sum(@{$columns{'Cost'}}), “\n”;