Since your data file seems to be a text file (like a csv only with whitespace as separator) you could consider using Text::CSV_XS: 
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

use Text::CSV_XS;
use Data::Dumper;

my $param = {   binary => 1,
        auto_diag => 1,
        sep_char => ' ',
        eol       => $/,
};
my %hash;
my $csv = Text::CSV_XS->new ( $param );
while ( my $row = $csv->getline( *DATA ) )
{
    print "@$row[0,1]\n"; # or whatever.
    $hash{$row->[0]} = $row->[1]; # read into a hash.
}
print Dumper \%hash;

__END__
b c a
a c d
d e b

[download]
Output of a Data::Dumper print statement is: 
$VAR1 = {
          'a' => 'c',
          'b' => 'c',
          'd' => 'e'
        };

[download]

Update: Typo corrected.

In reply to Re: How to save first two columns of an array into another array by vagabonding electron
in thread How to save first two columns of an array into another array by zing

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