Print Student Names from CSV

Description

Print all student names from a CSV file.

CSV Format:

• CSV file does not contain string delimited by double quotes.

• None of the cells has "," character or "\"" character.

• There are exactly two columns.

• No empty cells.

Code

csvread.pl

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

my $filename = "students.csv";
open (STUDENTS,$filename) ||  die "Cannot Open '$filename'";

# get column names
my $line = ;
chomp($line); 
my @column_names = split(",",$line);

print "Printing Student ${column_names[1]}s...\n";

# get all names
while($line = ){
    chomp($line);
    (my $id,my $name) = split(",",$line);
    print "$name\n";
}

#--------------------------------------------------------
# documentation
#

=head1 NAME

Print Student Names

=head1 SYNOPSIS

    chmod a+x ./csvread.pl
    ./csvread.pl

=cut

students.csv

ID,Name
1,Ashani
2,Sandeepani
3,Nimesha
4,Kaveesha
5,Abimani
6,Himadu
7,Vishmi
8,Shela
9,Vishvani
10,Claudia
11,Dinuwanthi
12,Anthonella
13,Sachini
14,Hiruni
15,Nimesha
16,Kavindi
17,Roshini
18,Dilini
19,Devinka
20,Noela
21,Nithmi
22,Azekah
23,Ishara
24,Andriya
25,Rishini
26,Shashini
27,Oshadhi
28,Sandali
29,Jehani
30,Thamasha
31,Shalini
32,Milka
33,Gihani
34,Sakuni
35,Piumi
36,Stefania
37,Kinkini
38,Shehana
39,Nimanshi
40,Emalsha
41,Shohani
42,Madusha
43,Nisaja
44,Kiyara
45,Dinithi
46,Sadunika
47,Sewmini
48,Rachel

Review

Conventions/Generic

It looks quite good. Perldoc, use strict, use warnings are all good practices. The formatting is good, and the code is readable.

I don't recommend hard-coding the name of the data file in your program. That turns it from a general-purpose program into throwaway code. If you use the default filehandle <>, then Perl will do the "right thing": if a filename is specified as a command-line parameter, it will read from that file; if not, it will read from STDIN. As a bonus, it saves you the trouble of having to call open(). (You neglected to explicitly close(STUDENTS), by the way.)

The CSV-parsing code is repeated for the header row and for the body. It should be made into a subroutine.

(my $id, my $name) could be written more idiomatically as my ($id, $name).

I find it annoying to use string interpolation like print "$something\n" just because you need a newline. I suggest taking advantage of the newish say feature.

The facts that you want the second column, and that the columns are the $id and $name, are both hard-coded. Perhaps you should add an assertion.

Suggested implementation

use strict;
use warnings;
use feature qw(say);

sub columns {
    my $line = shift;
    return unless defined $line;
    chomp($line);
    split ',', $line;
}

my @column_names = columns(scalar <>);

die unless $column_names[1] eq 'Name';
say "Printing Student ${column_names[1]}s...";
while (my ($id, $name) = columns(scalar <>)) {
    say $name;
}

StackExchange Code Review Q#67406, answer score: 7