Since you are dealing with comma-separated values, you should use a module that's optimized for such work (i.e. handles quoting, null values, etc etc), such as Text::CSV. (If you install Text::CSV_XS your code will run faster.)

Try the following, and Benchmark your results compared to your other solutions. As you say the dataset you are working with is pretty small; I would try to work up a much larger sample for benchmarking.

Personally, I avoid shelling out at almost all costs. 

$ cat 1204245.csv 

foo,bar,baz,qux
fred,barney,wilma,betty
apple,orange,banana,pear

[download]
use strict; use warnings; use feature 'say';
use Text::CSV_XS;

my $csv = Text::CSV_XS->new({ binary => 1, auto_diag => 1 });
open my $fh, '<', './1204245.csv' or die "Died: $!";

my @column = map { $_->[2] } @{ $csv->getline_all( $fh ) };

say for @column;

__END__

[download]
Output: 
$ perl 1204245.pl
baz
wilma
banana

[download]

Hope this helps!


The way forward always starts with a minimal test.

In reply to Re: search/grep perl/*nix by 1nickt
in thread search/grep perl/*nix by Gtforce

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.