Welcome to the wonderful world of perl;) One of the best features of perl is CPAN http://www.cpan.org. Most common problems will have a solution ready made just waiting for you to find it.

Have a look at Text::CSV or Text::CSV_XS, the latter uses C for speed but you will need a compiler to install it. They provide all the functionality you need for parsing CSV files, are aware of all the traps and have been heavily tested.