for (@lines) {
    my @cells = split;
    my $time  = join ' ', @cells[2 .. $#cells - 1];
    $table->addRow(@cells[0, 1], $time, $cells[-1]);
}
[download]

I humbly submit that the "array" definition and subsequent code will never do what is desired:

my @wtodays=
'cOne cTwo   cThree 13 sec  cFour           
cOne cTwo   cThree 11 sec  cFour 
cOne cTwo   cThree 1 min 2 sec  cFour 
cOne cTwo   cThree 13 sec  cFour'; 
 
for ( @wtodays )
{
$table->addRow(split(/\s+/, "$_\n"));
}
[download]

The array is being assigned a single string constant as if it was a scalar. The data in the array must first be organized properly before any meaningful manipulations can be done with it. For example:

my @wtodays = (
'cOne cTwo   cThree 13 sec  cFour'.           
'cOne cTwo   cThree 11 sec  cFour', 
'cOne cTwo   cThree 1 min 2 sec  cFour', 
'cOne cTwo   cThree 13 sec  cFour',
); 
 
for ( @wtodays )
{
    # do whatever text processing you need on a single row
}
[download]

And yes, if there are tabs between the column data, and spaces only occur in the column values, then the split becomes trivial once the array is properly defined.

Update: grammar correction in previous paragraph.

Ah, so you cannot simply split on whitespace, because one of your columns has whitespace in it. Luckily, the data looks simple enough that we can get around that. For example, try the following (untested) regex:

for ( @wtodays )
{
  if (/^(\w+)\s+(\w+)\s+(\w+)\s+([\w\s]+)\s+(\w+)$/)
  {
    $table->addRow($1, $2, $3, $4, $5);
  }
}
[download]

We individually capture each column. You can see that the regex for capturing the fourth column looks different than the others because of the whitespace it will contain. Specifically, instead of grabbing all the word-like characters, we grab all word-like and space-like characters, and then continue on our merry way to capturing the fifth column.

I hope this helps, and I hope you understand the logic behind it.

If your data has tabs/spaces/newlines where they should be, you can just split on the tab, and not just on any space, something like this:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use HTML::Table;
my $table = new HTML::Table(-border=>0.2,
 -bgcolor=>'#F4F5F7',
 -head=> ['ColumnA','ColumnB','ColumnC', 'ColumnD', 'ColumnE']);      
+           

while ( <DATA> )
{
my @row = split (/\t/, $_);
$table->addRow(@row);
}

print $table;
__DATA__
cOne    cTwo    cThree     13 sec    cFour
cOne    cTwo    cThree     11 sec    cFour 
cOne    cTwo    cThree    1 min 2 sec    cFour
cOne    cTwo    cThree    13 sec     cFour
[download]

G'day sidsinha,

The data you present is at odds with what you've described. The following works on the data you've shown:

$ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -le '
    my @wtodays=
    q{cOne cTwo   cThree 13 sec  cFour
    cOne cTwo   cThree 11 sec  cFour
    cOne cTwo   cThree 1 min 2 sec  cFour
    cOne cTwo   cThree 13 sec  cFour};

    my $re = qr{
        ^                                   # anchor: start of line
        \s*                                 # discard: possible whites
+pace
        (\w+)                               # capture: cOne
        \s+                                 # discard: whitespace
        (\w+)                               # capture: cTwo
        \s+                                 # discard: whitespace
        \w+                                 # discard: cThree
        \s+                                 # discard: whitespace
        ((?:\d+ \s+ min \s+)? \d+ \s+ sec)  # capture: possible min an
+d sec
        \s+                                 # discard: whitespace
        (\w+)                               # capture: cFour
        \s*                                 # discard: possible whites
+pace
        $                                   # anchor: end of line
    }mx;

    my @table_data;

    for (@wtodays) {
        while (/$re/g) {
            push @table_data => [$1, $2, $3, $4];
        }
    }

    {
        local $" = "|";

        for (@table_data) {
            print "@$_";
        }
    }
'
cOne|cTwo|13 sec|cFour
cOne|cTwo|11 sec|cFour
cOne|cTwo|1 min 2 sec|cFour
cOne|cTwo|13 sec|cFour
[download]

use Data::Dump;
$_ = q{cOne cTwo   cThree 1 min 2 sec  cFour };
dd[ m/(\d+\smin\s\d+\ssec|\S+)/g ]
__END__
["cOne", "cTwo", "cThree", "1 min 2 sec", "cFour"]
[download]

perlintro#More complex regular expressions /perlrequick/split