Yes, it is much better ... Because my code does something different than yours does. :)

My code turns each *column* of DATA into a single anonymous array, stored in @AoA so the print statement gives

1, 4, 7, A, D, G, J, M, P, S, V, Y
[download]

Your

my @AoA = map [split], <DATA>;

print join( ', ' , @{ $AoA[ 0 ] } ) , "\n";
[download]

Ahh, then it's just a matter of asking for the right print! The idiom for "extract a column while printing" is known, and reusable:

my @AoA = map [split], <DATA>;
print join(", ", map $AoA[0][$_], 0..$#{$AoA[0]}), "\n";
[download]

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

Cool. But I don't want to extract a column while printing, the print was just a way of showing the results if someone wanted to run the code.

I want to have an AoA with each element being a column of data ...not that I ever said as much, which, in retrospect, would have avoided lots of time spent by other people trying to figure out what my real goal was.

Sorry.

And thanks for the 'idiom', I added it to my personal archive of neat little bits O'Perl.