You are interpolating an array into a string; when you do this, you get a string with the elements of the array separated by the value of the $" variable, by default a single space. e.g. -

my @array = qw(foo bar baz);
my $string = "@array";
print "This is an interpolated array: $string";
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Will yield: This is an interpolated array: foo bar baz
Hope this helps!