You could use Text::CSV_XS or Text::CSV to parse the file. It has an option to set the separator character.

use Text::CSV_XS;

my $csv = Text::CSV_XS->new ({ sep_char = "\t" });
open my $io, "<", $file or die "$file: $!";
while (my $row = $csv->getline ($io)) {
    my @fields = @$row;
    ...
}
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