... what has got the example to do with CSV?

Well, in fact, a more correct name would be multilineCSV. This module takes several consecutive lines of fields (CSV, tabular, or whatever) that have the same value in a given field (the "key" field") and joins them in one logical record.

Well, I think that it has to do with CSV at least because internally it uses Parse::CSV to parse the lines.

Let's consider the following example:

Mike,5,6
Mike,5,3
John,5,1
John,3,0
Frank,6,1
[download]

Using this code:

use Tie::File::AnyData::CSV;

tie my @arr,'Tie::File::AnyData::CSV', key=>0, field_sep => ",";
print "$arr[0]\n";
## prints
# Mike,5,6
# Mike,5,3

untie @arr;

tie my @arr2,'Tie::File::AnyData::CSV', key=>1, field_sep => ',';
print "$arr[0]\n";
## Prints
# Mike,5,6
# Mike,5,3
# John,5,1
[download]

In the first case, all consecutive lines that have the same value in the first field ("Mike" in the key field), are considered a record. In the second case, all consecutive lines that have the same value in the second field ("5") are considered a record

From Tie::File::AnyData::CSV I would expect to get a tied array of arrays or array of hashes that'd let me access the individual items in the rows. And hopefully the ability to include the record separator within quoted data. Please find a better name for that format.

Hmmm, totally agree, I will try to change that name

Thanks for your comments!

citromatik