$3
is for the 3rd column of .txt
which represents my email address column. Why is the following statement outputing "$3"
rather than the email address?:
print " <td><a href=mailto:>$3</a></td>"
I am at a standstill.
Because you are printing a literal string, what you want is:
print " <td><a href=mailto:>"$3"</a></td>"