For me the next stage is working with a 2-column set of data:

Check out printf and sprintf

How would I go about creating a program that outputs:

You could create a hash with fruit for key and a list of persons for value.

Thank You, everyone for your help! I am just confused with the following example. I think it is an inverted form of the original example I performed:

%HoA = (
        flintstones        => [ "fred", "barney" ],
        jetsons            => [ "fred", "jane", "elroy" ],
        simpsons           => [ "fred", "marge", "bart" ],
      );
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If the family names (jetsons, simpsons) are always different but elements within each of the familes may or may not match. If I want to show that:

"fred" is a name that can be found in 3 families = [flintstones, jetso
+ns, simpsons]
e.t.c
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Is this possible with this hash formation?

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use Data::Dumper;

my %hoa = (
    flintstones        => [ "fred", "barney" ],
    jetsons            => [ "fred", "jane", "elroy" ],
    simpsons           => [ "homer", "marge", "bart" ],
);

my @freds = grep { $hoa{$_}->[0] eq 'fred' } sort keys %hoa;

print Dumper \@freds;
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Basically my data is subject to change but will follow a format as follows where I will have a unique "Family Name" followed by "--" followed by various "family members". The contents of the data are unknown to me apart from the format: Data is a text file as follows:

FLINTSTONES -- BARNEY, FRED, WILMA
JETSONS -- MAX, TONY, WILMA
SIMPSONS -- LISA, BARNEY, WILMA, HOMER
ALCATRAZ -- ELIJAH, MAX, WILMA
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I know I can grab this into an array called @Dopli. And split each line $unix at "--" into an array @trainer Is there a way of pushing each array into a hash using $trainer[0] and $trainer1.

sub nice_list {
   return ''    if @_ == 0;
   return shift if @_ == 1;
   
   my $last = pop;
   return join(', ', @_) . " and $last";
}

my $unix;
my @dopli;
my @trainer;

foreach $unix (@dopli){
@trainer = split ('=', $unix);

my %is_eaten_by = (
   $trainer[0]  => [ qw($trainer[1]) ],
  );

foreach my $fruit (keys %is_eaten_by) {
   my $eaters = $is_eaten_by{$fruit};
   my $num_eaters = @$eaters;
   my $s = $num_eaters == 1 ? 's' : '';
   my $p = $num_eaters == 1 ? '' : 's';
   print("$num_eaters person$p eat$s ${fruit}s: ",
         nice_list(@$eaters), "\n");
}
}
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Ultimately I am looking to print:

BARNEY can be found 2: FLINTSTONES SIMPSONS
FRED can be found 1: FLINTSTONES
WILMA can be found 4: FLINTSTONES JETSONS SIMPSONS ALCATRAZ
MAX can be found 2: JETSONS ALCATRAZ 
and so forth...
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Thanks for any kind of help or advice

The easiest way is to convert

FLINTSTONES -- BARNEY, FRED, WILMA
JETSONS -- MAX, TONY, WILMA
SIMPSONS -- LISA, BARNEY, WILMA, HOMER
ALCATRAZ -- ELIJAH, MAX, WILMA
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to

my %is_in_show = (
   MAX    => [ 'JETSONS', 'ALCATRAZ' ],
   WILMA  => [ 'FLINTSTONES', 'JETSONS', 'SIMPSONS', 'ALCATRAZ' ],
   HOMER  => [ 'SIMPSONS' ],
   ELIJAH => [ 'ALCATRAZ' ],
   ...
);
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when you read the file. The following accomplishes this:

while (<FILE>) {
   chomp;
   my ($show, $names) = split(/ -- /);
   my @names = split(/, /, $names);
   foreach my $name (@names) {
      push(@{$is_in_show{$name}}, $show);
   }
}
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So, when you do this:  if ( $v =~ 1 ) what's really happening is that the numeric "1" is being converted to a string and used as a regular expression, and the condition will be true if the current value of $v, when converted to a string, contains a digit "1". Try the following command line (may need to fiddle with the quotes, if you're using an ms-dos shell):

perl -e '$x = 213; print "got a one\n" if ($x =~ 1)'
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if ( $v == 1 )
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elsif ( $v != 1 )
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#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use Data::Dumper;

my %fruits;

while (<DATA>) {
    chomp;
    my @row = split /\s+/, $_, 2;
    warn @row and next unless @row == 2;
    $fruits{$row[0]}->{$row[1]}++;
}

for my $fruit (sort keys %fruits) {
    
    my $sum = 0;
    $sum += $fruits{$fruit}->{$_} for keys %{$fruits{$fruit}};
    $sum =  $sum == 1 ? $sum . ' TIME ' : $sum . ' TIMES ';
    
    my $people = '';
    my @people = keys %{$fruits{$fruit}};
    for (0..$#people) {
        $people .= $_ != $#people ? 
            uc ($people[$_]) . ' and ' : 
            uc ($people[$_]);
    }
    
    print uc $fruit, ' appears ', $sum, 'associated with ', $people, "
+\n"; 
}

__DATA__
apple  Tom
orange Tom
pear   Tom
mango  David
apple  David
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#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

package Fruit;
use Moose;

has 'count'     => ( is => 'rw' );
has 'person'    => ( isa => 'ArrayRef', is => 'rw' );

sub add_person {
    my $self    = shift;
    my $person  = shift;
    unless (grep {$_ eq $person} @{$self->{person}}) {
       push @{$self->{person}}, $person; 
    }
}

sub inc {
    my $self = shift;
    $self->{count}++;
}

sub sum {
    my $self = shift;
    my $sum  = $self->count;
    $sum = $sum == 1 ? $sum . ' TIME ' : $sum . ' TIMES ';
    return $sum;
}

sub persons {
    my $self = shift;
    my $people = '';
    my @people = @{$self->person};
    
    for (0..$#people) {
        $people .= $_ != $#people ? 
            uc ($people[$_]) . ' and ' : 
            uc ($people[$_]);
    }
    return $people;
}

package FruitBox;
use Moose;

has 'fruits'    => ( isa => 'HashRef', is => 'rw' );

sub add {
    my $self = shift;
    die unless @_ == 2;
    
    my $name = shift;
    my $person = shift;
    
    if (exists $self->{fruits}->{$name}) {
        my $fruit = $self->{fruits}->{$name};
        $fruit->add_person($person) and $fruit->inc;
    } else {
        my $fruit = Fruit->new;
        $fruit->add_person($person) and $fruit->inc;
        $self->{fruits}->{$name} = $fruit;
    }
}

sub to_s {
    my $self = shift;
    my $text = '';
    
    for my $fruit (sort keys %{$self->{fruits}}) {
        my $f = $self->{fruits}->{$fruit};
        $text .= uc ($fruit) . ' appears ' . $f->sum .
              'associated with ' . $f->persons . "\n";
    }
    return $text;
}

package main;

my $box = new FruitBox;

while (<DATA>) {
    warn $_ and next unless /^(\w+)\s+(\w+)$/;
    $box->add($1, $2);
}

print $box->to_s;

__DATA__
apple  Tom
orange Tom
pear   Tom
mango  David
apple  David
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