ken@ganymede: ~/local/bin $ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -E 'my $s = "foo bar baz qux 3 3 1 3"; my @a = split /\s/, $s; splice(@a, 0, 4); while (@a) { print (shift @a), (shift @a), "\n"; }' print (...) interpreted as function at -e line 1. Useless use of a constant ( ) in void context at -e line 1. 31ken@ganymede: ~/local/bin $ #### ken@ganymede: ~/local/bin $ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -E 'my $s = "foo bar baz qux 3 3 1 3"; my @a = split /\s/, $s; splice(@a, 0, 4); while (@a) { print +(shift @a), (shift @a), "\n"; }' 33 13 ken@ganymede: ~/local/bin $