From "perldoc perlsub":
Any arguments passed in show up in the array @_ . Therefore, if you called a function with two arguments, those would be stored in $_[0] and $_1 .

From "perldoc -f shift":
Shifts the first value of the array off and returns it, shortening the array by 1 and moving everything down. If there are no elements in the array, returns the undefined value. If ARRAY is omitted, shifts the @_ array ..

Don't use <STDIN> instead of shift(). You CAN use 

chomp(my $value = <STDIN>); # Instead of hard coding "5"

[download]
If you want the input from the keyboard.

        Profanity is the one language all programmers know best.

In reply to Re^3: My very confusing questions by NetWallah
in thread My very confusing questions by ROP

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