} elsif ($ary[0] = '12') { and found that $ary[0] was being assigned a value of 12.

Relational operators
                 String  Number
Equal            eq      ==
Not equal        ne      !=
Greater          gt      >
Greater or equal ge      >=
Less             lt      <
Less or equal    le      <=
Compare          cmp     <=>
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As you can see, = is not a relational operator that test equality. What is it then? It's the assignment operator.

You assigned 12 to $ary[0], and an assignment returns the assigned value, so the entire $ary[0] = '12' expression returns 12, which evaluates to true in boolean context. You probably meant == or eq, depending on how you want to see things. If you use ==, drop the quotes so that Perl doesn't have to convert the string 12 to the number 12.

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