in reply to why can't I shift a split?

$_='something,something else'; @_ = shift split /,/;

So you want to split at comma, but get only the first part?

use strict; use warnings; use v5.12; (my $first,undef)=split /,/,'foo,bar',2; say $first;

Alexander

--
Today I will gladly share my knowledge and experience, for there are no sweeter words than "I told you so". ;-)