Here is another approach which uses Text::CSV_XS and, gulp, CGI: 
use strict;
use warnings;

use Text::CSV_XS;
use CGI::Pretty qw(-any);

my $i;
my $csv = Text::CSV_XS->new({sep_char => ';'});

while (<DATA>) {
   $i = 0;
   warn and next unless $csv->parse($_);
   print CGI::row(map eval "CGI::col@{[++$i]}('$_')", $csv->fields);
}

__DATA__
colContents;nextColContents;lastColContents
colContents2;nextColContents2;lastColContents2
colContents3;nextColContents3;lastColContents3
a;b;c;d;e
f;g;h;i
j;k
l
m;n;o

[download]
The -any pragma in CGI.pm is pretty nifty, you can actually use it to create XML. No guarantees on valid XML, of course. Just be sure and either append the CGI package name or use the OO interface (else Perl will complain that main has no such method). I was able to increment the <colN> tags by using an evil eval trick. That was the toughest part of this code. Drop that requirement and utilize CGI.pm's distributive shortcuts feature thingy: 
use Text::CSV_XS;
use CGI::Pretty qw(-any);

my $csv = Text::CSV_XS->new({sep_char => ';'});
$csv->parse($_) and print CGI::row(CGI::col([$csv->fields]))
      while <DATA>;

[download]

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

In reply to (jeffa) 3Re: substituting repeating occurences ... (Text::CSV_XS / CGI.pm version) by jeffa
in thread newbie regex question: substituting repeating occurences for different replacements by RuyLopez

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