Or you could use a different type of for loop:

$ perl -le'
my $my_rand5 = rand( 5 );
my $data_length = 5 + $my_rand5;
printf "data length = %d\n", $data_length;
for my $k ( 0 .. $data_length - 1 ) {
    printf "loop k = %d\n", $k;
    }
'
data length = 9
loop k = 0
loop k = 1
loop k = 2
loop k = 3
loop k = 4
loop k = 5
loop k = 6
loop k = 7
loop k = 8
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