You may wish to look at something like Term::ReadLine or Term::ReadLine::Gnu. It is my understanding that those modules allow you to add such functionality to your scripts as the ability to edit a line (which sounds like the limitations of which you are encountering), or even add a command history.

In reply to Re: backspace works in shell, but not in Perl? by atcroft
in thread backspace works in shell, but not in Perl? by bcrowell2

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