If I have a file that looks like this: 
12345: 12:34:00,890,987,9876,...
12346: 12:35:02,789,987,234,...
12344: 12:35:04,345,987,1234,...
etc.

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And let's say that the 12:34:00 in line 1, 12:35:02 in line 2, and 12:35:04 in line 3 represent time. I want to separate this column for each line and do a comparison to it, keeping hours, minutes and seconds separate. I am first thinking of doing a split to separate each line by commas and then go in to each line that matches a condition '987' (for example) and for each line with '987' I want to take the time and manipulate it. This is what I have so far: 
LINE: while (<THATFILE>) {
    next LINE if (!/^\d+: \d{2}:/ );
    foreach $field(split /,/, $line) {
        chomp $field;
        if ($field == '987') {
         foreach $subtime (split /:/, $field) {

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How do I keep each field separate so that I can determine hours, minutes, and seconds?

In reply to split into hash by Anonymous Monk

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