If I understand what you are trying to do - you are spinning your wheels too hard.

Let the perl modules do the work for you.

Here is what I think you are trying to get to:

 # @array contains the field names (You call them 'labels') .
 # OK - so I assume they are also the field names, and we will use the
+m as labels.
my $counter = 0;

while ( my $r =  $sth->fetchrow_hashref() )
{
   $counter ++; 
   print " ---- $counter ------\n";
   for my $fieldname (@array){
     print " $fieldname:\t" . $r->{$fieldname} . "\n";
   }
}
[download]

(Untested)