You already have enough answers to your immediate question so I'll just add an advice:

If the code behaves funny, test whether the data look the way you expected.

In this case the very first thing should should have done is printing either the contents of @array or the value of $item before you modified it. Eg.

  print "\@array = ( '" . join( "', '", @array) . "')\n";
[download]

If you did this you'd see that the @array contains the variable NAMES, not their values.

Jenda
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.
   -- Rick Osborne

Edit by castaway: Closed small tag in signature