Using what you said as a template, I've come up with this so far: 
 #!/usr/local/bin/perl
 open (MYFILE, 'shoplist.csv');
while (<MYFILE>) {
     chomp;
     if (/\"(.*)\"/) {
         my ($first,$last) = split('\s', $_);                         
+             
         print "$last $first\n";
     }
 }
 close (MYFILE);

[download]

It's working decently, how do you get rid of commas and a double quote in a line? For example, the names are coming out like:

Last, "First

I'd like to remove the comma and the double quote so I can just have the last and first name. I'm getting pretty close, all that's left is to figure out how to save the middle initial!

In reply to Re^2: Matching part of a line and saving it into a variable by mistamutt
in thread Matching part of a line and saving it into a variable by mistamutt

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.