my @article = ( 'author = {Author, J.P }' , 'title = "A paper about things"' , 'etc...' ); # iterate over @article array removing all commas # the commas in the list assignment are gone having # been used to assign the list elements to the array # @article so we have no problem with them now. s/,//g for @article; # this is the same as foreach (@article) { $_ =~ s/,//g; } # in less idiomatic Perl where we do not take advantage of # the aliasing of array elements to $_ we have to write for my $i (0..$#article) { $article[$i] =~ s/,//g; } # to print all the elements of a list # on newlines I would normally just write: print "$_\n" for @article; # this takes advantage of the aliasing to $_ in a for loop # alternatively in long perl foreach my $stuff (@article) { print "$stuff\n"; } # to join all the edited elements will commas my $joined = join ",", @article; print $joined;