how about :

undef $array[$i]
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where $i is the element u wish to remove...

This will not actually remove an element from the array, but will set the value to undef, which will mean that $array[$i] is not defined. scalar @array will still return the same number as before. Here's an example:

my @array = qw( 1 2 3 4 );

print "there are ".scalar(@array)." elements in \@array \n";
print "the last index of \@array is $#array \n";
print "the 3'rd (index 2) value of \@array is  $array[2] \n";

undef $array[2];

print "\$array[2] is now undefined \n" if not defined $array[2];
print "there are STILL ".scalar(@array)." elements in \@array \n";
print "the last index of \@array is STILL $#array \n";
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