Your code gives me an error because 
print (split)[1];

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doesn't mean what you think it is. The compiler doesn't know whether you mean: 
( print(split) )[1];
print( (split)[1] );

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It's kinda like the expression: print (5 + 3) * 4 prints 8, and has a return value of 4 because it's parsed as: ( print(5 + 3) ) * 4. But in your case, since a list slice needs parentheses around the entire list your code causes a compile error (there are not parentheses around print(split)).

You can disambiguate those parentheses with a unary plus, to tell the compiler that the parentheses aren't used for a function call, they just are used as a grouping in the first argument (and the function call is without parentheses). 

print +(split)[1];

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Or you could just explicitly parenthesize two levels as above.

Update: not relevant to your specific question, but to your code in general -- you can just replace what you have with: 

perl -lnae 'print $F[1]' somefile

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-a does auto split into @F, -n does auto while(<>){..}, and -l does auto newline on print statements. See perlrun for details.

blokhead

In reply to Re: Yet Another Split Question by blokhead
in thread Yet Another Split Question by bier

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