my creates a var, so my $data[2] =~ ... makes no sense. An array element isn't a variable that can be created that way, and matching against a new var is not gonna do much. Get rid of that my. 
use strict;
use warnings;

use Text::CSV_XS qw( );

my $file = "checkdata.csv";

my $csv = Text::CSV_XS->new({ Binary => 1 })
    or die("Cannot create CSV object: ". Text::CSV->error_diag());

open(my $fh, '<', $file)
    or die("Can't open file \"$file\": $!\n");

my $sum;
while (my $row = $csv->getline($fh)) {
    next if $row->[3] eq 'Lunch';
    ( my $amt = $row->[2] ) =~ s/^\s+//;
    printf("%5.2f\n", $amt);
    $sum += $amt;
}

$csv->eof
    or die("Error parsing file: ", $csv->error_diag());

printf("Total: %5.2f\n", $amt);

[download]

In reply to Re: Why won't it please be a number? by ikegami
in thread Why won't it please be a number? by chuckhazard

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