jasonwolf:

You can normally answer a question like this yourself, simply by trying it:

$ cat x.pl
use strict;
use warnings;
my ($m,$n,$o,$p) = 1 .. 10;
print "m=$m, n=$n, o=$o, p=$p\n";

$ perl x.pl
m=1, n=2, o=3, p=4
[download]

So, it assigns 1 to the first variable, 2 to the second, ... up through the fourth. Then it throws the rest of the list items away.

By playing with the program (changing the number of variables, and the size of the list), you could then deduce the general behavior.

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.