you can use this

($item6,  $item5, $item4, $item3, $item2, $item1) = split //, $number
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or this

($item6, $item5, $item4, $item3, $item2, $item1) = split '', $number
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but i suspect that what you need is an array, so you should do this

@items = split //, $number
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or if you want it the the reverse order

@items = reverse split //, $number
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