Good code, but with that very high sigil-to-text ratio, I was scrambling Google to find out what "*_'_" meant. (FWIW, I did not find the answer in Google, or the docs, but figured it out experimentally). (Side note - the single-quote also threw off my editor's perl-highlighter).

Eventually, I decided I would not write code like that, fascinating as it is - it turns out to be just a way to avoid declaring a local variable. It works just as well replacing all instances of that and "$_'_" with "$Column_Index", and becomes a lot more readable ("local *_'_" being replaced by "my $Column_Index" helps by functioning without resorting to "no strict 'refs'").

I'm hoping this node helps other monks who may not have unraveled "_'_".

I'm also curious as to how this would be written in idiomatic perl6.