I did this same thing once, manipulating csv files. My program could rearrange csv columns, alter values, and more (I had an implementation in C and in perl). (When I get home I'll see if I can find the source somewhere).

What I did was create a double-indirected list. I loaded up the values as a strict array of arrays, then had the column names hashed to the column index (0 .. #columns). If I had to rearrange the columns, I just had to switch the index numbers around. I also had an array of column names (for reverse indexing).

lsd