Maybe you are after something like:

use strict;
use warnings;

my @lines;

while (<DATA>) {
    chomp;
    my @fields = split /\t/;
    push @lines, [@fields];
}

# At this point @lines contains an array ref for each input line.
# Each array ref is the list of field data for the line

for (@lines) {
    # Do some stuff with the data
    print "$_->[0] is a $_->[2] $_->[1] who enjoys a good game of $_->
+[7]\n";
}

print "\n";
# Now output the fields in a different order:
for (@lines) {
    print "\t", join ("\t", @{$_}[0, 1, 3, 4, 7]), "\n";
}

__DATA__
Berlinda    Girl    Newmarket    Lord,    army;    shield    54    Soc
+cer
Berlindis    Girl    Newmarket    Lord,    army;    shield    32    Fo
+otball

[download]

Prints:

Berlinda is a Newmarket Girl who enjoys a good game of Soccer
Berlindis is a Newmarket Girl who enjoys a good game of Football

    Berlinda    Girl    Lord,    army;    Soccer
    Berlindis    Girl    Lord,    army;    Football

[download]

Note that for posting questions it is much better if you provide sample code that can be run and that relying on external files makes that harder. See I know what I mean. Why don't you?.

DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel

In reply to Re: Parsing simple text, made difficult by GrandFather
in thread Parsing simple text, made difficult by sdyates

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