unpack? You guys are sick. How about nice and simple?

@items = ( $num =~ /\d/g );
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will do what you want, as long as you are certain you always want it split into individual digits. To be more interesting,

@items = ( $num =~ /\d{1,$n}/g );
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will split the number into as many groups of $n digits as it can and the last element of the array will be any remaining digits (ie, length($num) % n ). Mik