No kidding. Could that have anything to do with splitting your input
on ',' when there are no commas in the line at all? 
Your code is also very un-rubyish. A more idiomatic approach:
lines = File.new("data.csv").each_line { |line| lines << line.chomp!.split("^") } lines.each { |line| puts "First: #{line[0]}" }
FWIW,
