Additionally,

 #!/usr/local/bin/perl -w 
use strict;

my @a=<STDIN>;

print $a[0];
print $a[1];
print $a[2];
[download]

returns the contents of  $a[1] and  $a[2] but nothing (not even a newline) for  $a[0] .
Arghhhh!
jg