Maybe overkill, but here's a DBI solution with DBD::CSV: 
use DBI;
my $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:CSV:f_dir=.;csv_sep_char=\t") or die "Cann
+ot connect: " . $DBI::errstr;
$dbh->{'csv_tables'}->{'employees'} = { file => 'employees.txt'};

# now you have your choice of DBI commands.  This one gets a ref to a 
+Array of Hashrefs
my $aref = $dbh->selectall_arrayref("select * from employees", {Slice=
+>{}}, );  # AoH

$dbh->disconnect();

[download]
Or, to go overkill one more step :) wrap that in Class::DBI: 
package My::Employees;
use base qw/Class::DBI/;
__PACKAGE__->connection("DBI:CSV:f_dir=.;csv_sep_char=\t",);
__PACKAGE__->db_Main->{'csv_tables'}->{'employees'} = { file => 'emplo
+yees.txt'};  # i'm guessing a little here .. it's a lot easier if the
+ file doesn't have an extension
__PACKAGE__->table('employees');
__PACKAGE__->columns(Primary => qw/NAME/ );  # is it unique??
__PACKAGE__->columns(All => qw/NAME EMAIL OFFICE/);

package main;
my @all = My::Employees->retrieve_all;
my $first = $all[0];
warn $first->EMAIL;

[download]

In reply to Re: Parsing a 3-Column Tab-Deliminated File by davidrw
in thread Parsing a 3-Column Tab-Deliminated File by UrbanHick

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