So how does your current code fail to serve your purposes? An alternative: 

c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le
"my $line = qq{1424621700, 2015-02-22 16:15:00, 4294.700\n};
 chomp $line;
 print qq{'$line'};
 ;;
 my ($first) = split m{ , \s* }xms, $line;
 print qq{'$first'};
"
'1424621700, 2015-02-22 16:15:00, 4294.700'
'1424621700'

[download]

Update: Ah, I see it now:
    my $first_line = $splits;
and again, how can this compile with strict enabled? You probably want something like the
    my $first_line = $splits[0];
statement you had before.

Give a man a fish:  <%-{-{-{-<

In reply to Re^3: How do I select first string of a two dimensional array to compare to other values? by AnomalousMonk
in thread How do I select first string of a two dimensional array to compare to other values? by joi1369

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