Re: while loop returning numbers not strings

[ww]

See split.

from perldoc -f split:

    split /PATTERN/,EXPR,LIMIT
    split /PATTERN/,EXPR
    split /PATTERN/
    split   Splits the string EXPR into a list of strings and returns 
+that
            list. By default, empty leading fields are preserved, and 
+empty
            trailing ones are deleted. (If all fields are empty, they 
+are
            considered to be trailing.)

            In scalar context, returns the number of fields found.
    ....

Try splitting to an array, @words and printing them....

#!/usr/bin/perl
use 5.014;
# 1007352

# error here:    $word = split "", $lines;

my $lines = "foo bar baz bat read the docs; they're often helpful.";

my @word = split "", $lines;  # $word replaced with @word

say @word;

OR (perhaps preferably)

#!/usr/bin/perl
use 5.014;
# 1007352

# error here:    $word = split "", $lines;

my $lines = "foo bar baz bat read the docs; they're often helpful.";

my @word = split " ", $lines;  # $word replaced with @word; "" replace
+d with " "

my $word;
for $word( @word) {
    say $word;
}