Not very fast or maintenable, though. How about something like:

sub read_stuff
{
    my ($handle, $delim, $col) = @_;

    my $prep = '^\s*';
    $prep .= "\w+${delim}+" for 1 .. $col - 1;
    $prep .= "(\w+)(?:${delim}|$)";
    my $regex = qr/$prep/;
    my @list = map { /$regex/o } <$handle>;

    return @list;
}

my $handle = IO::File->new(filename => "some_file");
my @list = read_stuff($handle, ' ', 6);
[download]

Remember something - "fast" is a relative term. You might squeeze an additional millisecond from your CPU, but require an extra 8 hours every time you want to make a change to your code. To me, that's not worth it. My 8 hours is worth more than one millisecond of CPU time. To me, "fast" has to do with acceptable CPU progress and lightning-quick maintenance time. YMMV.

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