...
@a = qw| / /home/ /var/ /tmp/ /var/tmp/ |;
# afaik ls doesn't care if there is a trailing slash for directories
...

##</code><code>##

...
@a = ('','/home','/var','/tmp','/var/tmp');
@b = map { chomp(my @x = `ls $_/`);[@x]} @a;
# $_ interpolates to `ls /` for @a[0]
# do the same for the print statement