stevieb:

Yet another version, slightly whackier:

$ cat plonk.pl 
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my @wanted = qw(CITY NAME);

# get map of column headings (COLNAME=>INDEX)
my %headings = do {
    my $t = <DATA>;
    chomp $t;
    my $cnt=0;
    map { $_=>$cnt++ } split /\|/, $t;
};

while (<DATA>) {
    chomp;
    my @cols = split /\|/;
    # A hash slice to get the column numbers we want, and
    # an array slice to extract those columns from the
    # list....
    print join(", ",@cols[@headings{@wanted}]),"\n";
}

__DATA__
NAME|AGE|CITY|ZIP
AAA|23|STAT|60001
BBB|34|PPOR|12345
CCC|11|TRET|2345

$ perl plonk.pl
STAT, AAA
PPOR, BBB
TRET, CCC

[download]

Update: Improved the (pre-existing) comments a little.

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.

In reply to Re: Better method to cut columns from delimited file by roboticus
in thread Better method to cut columns from delimited file by stevieb

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