#!/usr/bin/perl 
use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;


my @letters = unpack( "(a)*", 'Hello World' );
print Dumper \@letters;


__END__
Output:$VAR1 = [
          'H',
          'e',
          'l',
          'l',
          'o',
          ' ',
          'W',
          'o',
          'r',
          'l',
          'd'
        ];