just seems that I'm braindead today. Why does this piece of code break?

#!perl -w
use strict;

my @c = q' # % ( / 3 6 7 @ B C G Q R ^ s t ~ ';

print $c[2];

# breaks into :
#  Use of uninitialized value in print at test.pl line 6.
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I even tried to join the array with this:

print join ('|', @c);

# results in: # % ( / 3 6 7 @ B C G Q R ^ s t ~
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where am I going wrong? I guess there is something special about the characters?

The qw() operator works as far as joining the array, but breaks with -w and gives this warning.

Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list at test.pl line 4.
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Edit by tye to change title