That is one way. It assigns the list of values contained in @look_for back to the original scalar variables.

Another way is using references.

# Assign to @look_for, references to $name, etc.
# Note:  \($x, $y, $z) is the same as (\$x, \$y, \$z)
# because the reference symbol binds to each element in
# the list.

my @look_for = \( $name, $nerd, $noodle, $froodle,);

foreach my $item ( @look_for ) {

    # notice how I dereference $item so that we get
    # to what it points to.

    $$item =~ s/$i_seek/ /g;

}
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That will do what he's looking for, unless, of course, we've now broken other uses of @look_for in his code where his code might be expecting @look_for to contain scalar values rather than references to scalar variables.

Dave

"If I had my life to do over again, I'd be a plumber." -- Albert Einstein