If you allow Perl to tell you more by enabling warnings, the following might help you:

> perl -wle 'print (getpwnam(traveler))[2,3];'

print (...) interpreted as function at -e line 1.
Unquoted string "traveler" may clash with future reserved word at -e l
+ine 1.
syntax error at -e line 1, near ")["
Execution of -e aborted due to compilation errors.
[download]

The print uses your set of parentheses as its function call parameters. Thus, the additional square brackets make no sense to Perl. Add another set of parentheses to tell Perl what you mean:

> perl -e 'print( (getpwnam(traveler))[2,3] );'

Unquoted string "traveler" may clash with future reserved word at -e l
+ine 1.
The getpwnam function is unimplemented at -e line 1.
[download]

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.