While I personally miss the built in support of iterators. (I was working on a patch to Want.pm for Iterator context, but haven't had the time to finish), you can get the DWIM with iterator closures.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict;

sub char_iterator(\$){
    my $str = shift;
    my $count = 0;
    return sub {
             if (wantarray){
                my ($tc,$len) = ($count, (length($$str) - $count) );
                $count = length($$str);
                return split('', substr($$str,$tc,$len));
            }else{
                return substr($$str,$count++,1);    
            }
           }
}


my $string = join('', ('a'..'z') x 3);


my $chariter = char_iterator($string);

# Get one char at a time.
while(my $char = $chariter->() ){
    print "Got $char\n";
}

# Get it in list context.
my $mapiter = char_iterator($string);
my @upper = map { uc($_)."\n" } $mapiter->();
print @upper;
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update I had a possible workaround to the "lazy evaluate" situation here. I still plan to explore this further as time permits. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

-Lee

"To be civilized is to deny one's nature."