Perhaps something like this? 
my @array = qw(aaron george bob tom nick heyyou john);

my $numitems = int(rand($#array));
for(my $i = 0; $i < $numitems; $i++) {
        my $item = int(rand($#array));
        print @array[$item] . "\n";
}

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In reply to Re: randomly choosing elements from an array by Segfault
in thread randomly choosing elements from an array by sulfericacid

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