If you want to avoid using pack/unpack you can often load text files into your favourite spreadsheet, that will allow you to separate the data using fixed width columns.

You can then save the data from whatever program you are using in a more suitable "split" format such as tab-delimited.

Then you can use..

@words = split \t, $line;
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..to split on tabs.

Thats just an easier way of looking at it for stupid people like me.

M