I've put 2 spaces between the columns as that's how it looked in your example, but it wasn't specified. 

#! perl -sl
use strict;
use List::Util qw[ max sum ];
use Data::Dumper;

our $WIDTH ||= 80;

sub columnise {
    my( $width, @list ) = @_;
    my @lines;

    for my $rows ( 1 .. @list ) {
        my $cols = int( (@list + $rows -1) / $rows );
        my @aoa = map{
            [ @list[ $_ .. $_+$rows-1 ] ]
        } map{ $_ * $rows } 0 .. $cols-1;

        my @widths = map{
            2+ max map length( $_||'' ), @$_
        } @aoa;

        next if sum( @widths ) > $WIDTH;

        for my $row ( 0 .. $rows-1 ) {
            push @lines, join '', map{
                sprintf "%-$widths[ $_ ]s", $aoa[ $_ ][ $row ]||''
            } 0 .. $#aoa;
        }
        return @lines;
    }
}

chomp( my @list = sort <DATA> );
close DATA;

print for columnise $WIDTH, @list;

__DATA__
<<SNIP>>

[download]

Output at various widths

[20:52:55.75] P:\test>405274 -WIDTH=132
B           DB_File  Digest      Errno  Filter     IO    MIME       Op
+code  SDBM_File  Storable  Time     attrs    util
ByteLoader  Data     DynaLoader  Fcntl  GDBM_File  IPC   NDBM_File  PO
+SIX   Safe       Sys       Unicode  re
Cwd         Devel    Encode      File   I18N       List  ODBM_File  Pe
+rlIO  Socket     Thread    XS       threads

[20:46:45.06] P:\test>405274 -WIDTH=80
B           Digest      Filter     MIME       SDBM_File  Time     util
ByteLoader  DynaLoader  GDBM_File  NDBM_File  Safe       Unicode
Cwd         Encode      I18N       ODBM_File  Socket     XS
DB_File     Errno       IO         Opcode     Storable   attrs
Data        Fcntl       IPC        POSIX      Sys        re
Devel       File        List       PerlIO     Thread     threads

[20:47:05.06] P:\test>405274 -WIDTH=40
B           Filter     SDBM_File  util
ByteLoader  GDBM_File  Safe
Cwd         I18N       Socket
DB_File     IO         Storable
Data        IPC        Sys
Devel       List       Thread
Digest      MIME       Time
DynaLoader  NDBM_File  Unicode
Encode      ODBM_File  XS
Errno       Opcode     attrs
Fcntl       POSIX      re
File        PerlIO     threads

[20:47:15.53] P:\test>405274 -WIDTH=20
B           util
ByteLoader
Cwd
DB_File
Data
Devel
Digest
DynaLoader
Encode
Errno
Fcntl
File
Filter
GDBM_File
I18N
IO
IPC
List
MIME
NDBM_File
ODBM_File
Opcode
POSIX
PerlIO
SDBM_File
Safe
Socket
Storable
Sys
Thread
Time
Unicode
XS
attrs
re
threads

[20:47:23.53] P:\test>405274 -WIDTH=25
B           NDBM_File
ByteLoader  ODBM_File
Cwd         Opcode
DB_File     POSIX
Data        PerlIO
Devel       SDBM_File
Digest      Safe
DynaLoader  Socket
Encode      Storable
Errno       Sys
Fcntl       Thread
File        Time
Filter      Unicode
GDBM_File   XS
I18N        attrs
IO          re
IPC         threads
List        util
MIME

[download]
Examine what is said, not who speaks.
"Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
"Think for yourself!" - Abigail
"Memory, processor, disk in that order on the hardware side. Algorithm, algorithm, algorithm on the code side." - tachyon

In reply to Re: 'ls -C' column style by BrowserUk
in thread 'ls -C' column style by hv

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