Your @Variables is an array, each element of which is a line in the file. That's what the diamond operator gives you in list context.

So, $Variables[3] is the whole fourth line from the file called 'variables.dat'. That's not what you want. You're looking for the fourth *field* in whichever line. (I'm assuming those are tab-separated valued, BTW...)

Without resorting to DBD::CSV or Text::CSV_XS (which may or may not be the best idea in your case), you can do it like this, after the code you posted in the root node: 

foreach ( @Variables ){
  my $user_id = '';
  my @elements = split /\t/;
  my $user_name = $elements[3];
  # do something wonderful with $user_name;
}

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In reply to Re: reading scalars from text file by mrbbking
in thread reading scalars from text file by sdyates

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