3104|1|New Years|12/31/2007
3104|1|Holiday|1/1/2008
3104|1|Clinic|1/2/2008
3104|1||1/3/2008
      ^^---- the uninitialized value is here

##</code><code>##

print "$PID|$SID|",shift(@flds),"|$date\n"; 

##</code><code>##

print "$PID|$SID|",(@flds ? shift(@flds) : ''),"|$date\n";

##</code><code>##

print "$PID|$SID|",shift(@flds),"|$date\n" if $flds[0];

##</code><code>##

my @dates_copy = @dates;