That's a slice you've got there. From the Camel Book:

"Saying @foo[1] when you mean $foo[1]. The @foo[1] reference is an array slice, meaning an array consisting of the single element $foo[1]. Sometimes this doesn't make any difference, as in:

print "the answer is @foo[1]\n";
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but it makes a big difference for things like:

@foo[1] = <STDIN>;
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which will slurp up all the rest of STDIN, assign the first line to @foo[1], and discard everything else. This is probably not what you intended. Get into the habit of thinking that $ means a single value, while @ means a list of values, and you'll do okay."

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Allolex