I had a need to print the values of an array in vertical columns.

Input array:

one two three four five six seven eight nine ten
[download]

Output:

              t                   s    e          
              h    f    f         e    i    n     
    o    t    r    o    i    s    v    g    i    t
    n    w    e    u    v    i    e    h    n    e
    e    o    e    r    e    x    n    t    e    n
[download]

Here's the code I came up with to do it...

use strict;

    my  @w_rows         = qw(one two three four five six seven eight n
+ine ten); # Rows

    rows_to_columns(\@w_rows, "    ", 1);

############################################################
# Function: rows_to_columns
# Purpose:  Vertically print the input array
# Example:  rows_to_columns(\@array[,$pad[,$justify]]);
############################################################
sub rows_to_columns {

    my  $r_rows         = $_[0];         # Ref to input array
    my  $w_pad          = $_[1] || '  '; # Spacing between columns
    my  $s_justify      = $_[2] || 0;    # Justify 0=top, 1=bottom

    return 0              unless (ref($r_rows) eq "ARRAY");

    my  @w_rows         = @$r_rows;
    my  %w_columns      = ();
    my  %w_col_rows     = ();
    my  $w_row_ix       = 0;
    my  $w_col_ix       = 0;
    my  $l_max_row      = 0;
    my  $w_row          = '';

    # Find the longest array element ($l_max_row)
    $w_row_ix           = map { $l_max_row= (length($_) > $l_max_row) 
                        ? length($_) : $l_max_row; } @w_rows;

    #####################################
    # Process input array
    #####################################
    for ( $w_row_ix     = 0; $w_row_ix <= $#w_rows; $w_row_ix++ ) {
        $w_row          = ($s_justify) 
                        ? ' ' x ($l_max_row - length($w_rows[$w_row_ix
+])) . $w_rows[$w_row_ix] 
                        : $w_rows[$w_row_ix] . ' ' x ($l_max_row - len
+gth($w_rows[$w_row_ix])) ;
      # print "$w_row\n";

      ###################
      # Reformat->columns
      ###################
        for ( $w_col_ix = 0; $w_col_ix < $l_max_row; $w_col_ix++ ) {
            my $w_char  = substr($w_row,$w_col_ix,1);
            $w_columns{$w_col_ix} = "$w_columns{$w_col_ix}${w_pad}${w_
+char}";
        }
    }

    #####################################
    # Print input array - vertically
    #####################################
    for my $key ( sort { $a <=> $b } keys %w_columns ) {
        print "$w_columns{$key}\n";
    }
    
    return 1;
    
}
[download]

Comments and constructive suggestions are welcome :)

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