I think whatever perl normally uses $= for is irrelevant. The idea is to use the assignment to a scalar to evaluate the array in scalar context. The anonymous array exists to evaluate the <> in list context. So, slurp the file into the anonymous array, then assign the size of the array to $= and print it. 

---
print map { my ($m)=1<<hex($_)&11?' ':'';
$m.=substr('AHJPacehklnorstu',hex($_),1) }
split //,'2fde0abe76c36c914586c';

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In reply to Re: what's this loo code? by pfaut
in thread what's this loo code? by John M. Dlugosz

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