hi, i am using the following code to extract single words(filtering out all punctaution marks) from a text (compound words like the-hell are counted as one word). i have to use this script on letters,e-mails,text documents etc. the string i used here is just an example. is there any better way to do it? 
@single = qw(I sit here and think-
             what the-hell am
             i doing with perl?);

foreach (@single)
{
$_=~ s/([^A-Za-z0-9-])//i;
}

[download]
Also when i extract the text from database into a variable and do it this way 

$a= "I sit here and think-
     what the-hell am
     i doing with perl?"

qw($a);

[download]
it only returns the variable name "a". how can i get the value of the variable there? i want it to return single words in the text contained in $a. how can i do this?? alternatively, if i have to extract single words from a text (excluding punctuation marks), how do i do it?

janitored by ybiC: Retitle from atrocious "HELP WITH REGULAR EXPRESSIONS!!!!!!"

In reply to Split a string into individual words by fadingjava

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