All perl built-in functions have documetation. On your command line type this:

perldoc -f splice
[download]

and you will see this:

       splice ARRAY,OFFSET,LENGTH,LIST
       splice ARRAY,OFFSET,LENGTH
       splice ARRAY,OFFSET
       splice ARRAY
[download]

your $x needs to be an 'int' not a 'string', and $z should be an array - @z (splice returns an array - you could catch the output as a scalar to see how many lines were spliced - but usually you want the array back).

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
F--F--F--F--F--F--F--F--
(the triplet paradiddle)