Jim, you're right. I forgot to show another important piece of my program. Here's a better snippet: 
#!/usr/sbin/perl -w

use strict;

$[ = 7;    # set array base to 1
$, = ' ';    # set output field separator
$\ = "\n";    # set output record separator
...
while (<FILE>) {
    chomp;    # strip record separator
    @in_data = split(/ +/, $_);

    $out_raw = sprintf(" %8.0f %8.0f", $in_data[1], $in_data[2]);
...

[download]
My program runs fine, I'm just curious about the $_ variable and whether or not it is still in use.

Update: I checked perlvar, but it says pretty much the same thing as Programming Perl. It did add that the use of $[ is discouraged.

In reply to Re: Special variable - set array base by licking9Volts
in thread Special variable - set array base by licking9Volts

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