Solution Found! Thank you everyone who helped, here is my final part of the script that formats XLS:

...

use strict;
use warnings;
use DBI;
use POSIX;
use File::Basename;
use Net::SFTP::Foreign;
use Text::CSV::Simple;
use Spreadsheet::WriteExcel;

...

# Generate XLS from array:
my $strExcelFilename = "filename.xls";
my $workbook = Spreadsheet::WriteExcel->new($strExcelFilename);
my $worksheet = $workbook->addworksheet("worksheetname");
my $intStartRow = 1;
my $i = $intStartRow;
my $intQueryArray = 0;
my $o = $intQueryArray;
my $intStartCol = 0;
my $u = $intStartCol;

$sth = execute_query("QUERY THAT RETURNS DATA FOR MULTIPLE COLUMNS IN 
+ONE COLUMN");

my %header = (
-bold => 1,
-italic => 1,
-text_wrap => 1,
-border => 1,
);

my $format = $workbook->add_format(%header);
$worksheet->write('A1', "something", $format);
$worksheet->write('B1', "something", $format);
$worksheet->write('C1', "something", $format);
$worksheet->write('D1', "something", $format);
$worksheet->write('E1', "something", $format);
$worksheet->write('F1', "something", $format);
$worksheet->write('G1', "something", $format);

# Format and split strings from query into their corresponding columns
my @res;

while ($res[$o] = $sth->fetchrow_array()) {
    my $set = $res[$o];
    $set =~ s/[\(\)]//g;
    my @values = split(',', $set);
    
    foreach my $value (@values) {
        $worksheet->write($i, $u, $value);
        $u++
        }
        
    $u = 0;
    $i++;
    $o++;
}
[download]

Original Post

Hello all, I am pretty new to Perl but have coded in other languages and I have a problem. I have a data set coming back from a query that has all of the tables data in the first column. Each row in the first column has data like this:

(x,y,z,etc)
(x,y,z,etc)
(x,y,z,etc)
[download]

I need to split that data across to corresponding columns. Using "," as the delimiter between data, and removing the "()" wrapped around the results, producing something like this:

COL ->   A B C D E F G
ROWS-> 1 x y z . . . . 
       2 x y z . . . .
       3 x y z . . . .
       4 x y z . . . .
[download]

My code first puts the returnset from the query into an object $sth, sets the column headers, and formats them. Then I use:

...

while (my @res = $sth->fetchrow_array()) {
    $worksheet->write($i, 0, $res[0]);
    $i++;
}

...
[download]

This populates my excel file's first column with the data. I need help on how to place each (x,y,z,etc) into their own columns. There are also times when there is no data and a null or blank needs to be inserted. Can I do this when I am originally populating through my array while loop? Or should I populate like have already done then add in new code to split the data across the rows? I have done some searching online and found something similar to what I need:

...

$/ = '';
my %list;
while ( my $block = <DATA> ) {
    my ($tag, @list) = split /\n/, $block;
    s/^-- // for @list;
    $list{$tag} = \@list;
}

my $row = 0;
foreach my $tag ( @{ $list{'main'} } ) {
    if ( exists $list{$tag} ) {
        $worksheet->write($row, 0, $tag);
        $worksheet->write_row($row++, 1, $list{$tag});
    }
}

...
[download]

But even after reading the perl regular expression documentation, I am still very confused as to how to read through this code and apply it to my own problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated ! -squarez