I don't mean to come down on you if this is a genuine problem you are having. However, there have been many questions posted recently like the one asked above, all posted by Anonymous Monk that just scream "CS101 homework".

I can find no practical purpose to the problem presented above. If this is a genuine problem and not homework, can you please explain the context of the problem?

From now on I will not answer any question that I suspect is CS101 homework and is posted by Anonymous Monk. I hope others will follow my lead. I believe the purpose of Perlmonks is to enlighten the perl community and not to do someone's homework for them.