#!perl
use strict;
use Excel::Writer::XLSX;

# Create a new Excel workbook and worksheet
my $workbook = Excel::Writer::XLSX->new( 'fruits.xlsx' );
my $worksheet = $workbook->add_worksheet();

# get fruit types
open FRUITS,'fruit_types.txt' or die "$!";
my @fruits = split '\s',<FRUITS>;

# write column for each fruit
for my $col (0..$#fruits){
  my $fruit = $fruits[$col];
  my $filename = $fruit.'.txt';
  open IN, $filename or die "Could not open $filename : $!";
  
  my @col = ($fruit);
  while (<IN>){
    chomp;
    push @col, $_;
  }
  print "Writing column $col @col\n";
  $worksheet->write_col(0,$col,\@col);
}
$workbook->close() or die "Error closing file: $!";
[download]

Oh dear Lord, this is incredible!

Thanks so much poj, for taking the time to write this. This is exactly what I'm looking for!

With the risk of extracting the Michael...

...Any way of making the output to the spread sheet start at column 2 as the first columns in the spread sheet will already be accounted for? i.e

column 0 column 1   column 2  column 3  column 4

shop     area       apple     banana    orange
Aldi     Glasgow    1         2         5
Tesco    Edinburgh  5         6         3
Asda     London     3         1         7
[download]

# write column for each fruit
for my $i (0..$#fruits){
  my $col = $i+2;
  my $fruit = $fruits[$i];

.. etc
[download]

poj