Or an array of arrays, but this would use more memory than using hashes as suggested above, which might be important if your files are very large: 

#!/usr/bin/perl 
use strict;
use warnings;

my $fileName = $ARGV[0];
my $numberOfColumns = 0;
my @line = ();
my $lineNumber = 0;
my $x = 0;
my $p = 0;
my @arrayOfArrays = ();
my $firstTime = 0;

open (FILE, "<", $fileName);
while (<FILE>)
    {
        chomp;
        @line = split (",", $_);
        if ($firstTime == 0)
            {
                $numberOfColumns = @line;
                $firstTime = 1;
            }
        for($x = 0; $x < $numberOfColumns; $x += 1)
            {
                $arrayOfArrays[$x][$lineNumber] = $line[$x];
            }

        $lineNumber +=1; 
    }

#to access your values: column one: $p=0, column 2: $p = 1 etc.
for ($p = 0; $p < $numberOfColumns; $p += 1)
    {
        for ($x= 0; $x<$lineNumber; $x += 1)
            {
                print STDERR "$arrayOfArrays[$p][$x]\n";
            }
    }

[download]

-Michael

In reply to Re: indefinite number of columns by mtmcc
in thread indefinite number of columns by torres09

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