If you're dealing with really ragged input data: 

use 5.010;  # for // operator
use warnings;
use strict;

use Data::Dump;

use Test::More
  # tests => ?? + 1  # Test::NoWarnings adds 1 test
    'no_plan'
    ;
use Test::NoWarnings;


my @totals;

while (my $line = <DATA>) {

    chomp $line;

    my @fields = split ' ', $line;

    for my $i (0 .. $#fields) {
      # $totals[$i] = $fields[$i] + (defined($totals[$i]) ? $totals[$i
+] : 0);
        $totals[$i] = $fields[$i] + ($totals[$i] // 0);
        }

    # dd \@fields;  dd\@totals;  # FOR DEBUG

    }

my $max_input_cols = @totals;


ok $max_input_cols == 5, qq{max number input columns};
is_deeply \@totals, [ 21, 176, 909, 6006, 20002 ], qq{column totals};


printf qq{max cols in input data: %d \n}, $max_input_cols;
print  qq{column totals: \n};
printf qq{%6d}, $_ for 0 .. $#totals;
print  qq{\n};
for my $col (@totals) {
    printf qq{%6d}, $col;
    }
print qq{\n};


__DATA__
1 11
2 22 202 2002 20002
3 33 303
4 44 404 4004
5
6 66

[download]

Output: 

c:\@Work\Perl\monks\Anonymous Monk\1077543>perl ragged_field_summation
+_1.pl
ok 1 - max number input columns
ok 2 - column totals
max cols in input data: 5
column totals:
     0     1     2     3     4
    21   176   909  6006 20002
ok 3 - no warnings
1..3

[download]

In reply to Re: How can you make this script general? by AnomalousMonk
in thread How can you make this script general? by Anonymous Monk

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