# SPLIT THE IP-ADDRESSES INTO FOUR =STRINGS= BY
# THE PERIOD CHARACTER.
my ($a1, $a2, $a3, $a4) = split('.', @$a);
The split built-in function does not use single-quotes around a /PATTERN/ argument to 'meta-quote' the argument: the '.' in the above really is trying to split on "any character except newline". Use '\.' to split on a literal period.
>perl -wMstrict -le
"my $s = 'a.bb.ccc.d';
;;
my @ra = split '.', $s;
print 'naked dot';
printf qq{ '$_'} for @ra;
print '@ra elements: ', scalar @ra;
;;
@ra = split '\.', $s;
print 'escaped dot';
printf qq{ '$_'} for @ra;
"
naked dot
@ra elements: 0
escaped dot
'a' 'bb' 'ccc' 'd'
