Compare 

my @shift;
@{shift} = ( 0, 8, 8, 7.5, 8, 8.5, 0 );

my @weekday = qw(sun mon tue wed thu fri sat);
for (0..$#shift) {
  printf "On %s I work %s hours", $weekday[$_], $shift[$_];
};

[download]

against your function. @{STRING} is a way to access the array variable @STRING, at least as long as no strict 'refs' is in effect. For example the stupid idea to access a variable by its name could be implemented like that. The conflict arises because Perl and perl don't know whether you meant the string "shift" or the function shift, so it doesn't know what to do, and decides for one of the two but warns you of the other possibility.

In reply to Re: Ambiguity of @{ shift } by Corion
in thread Ambiguity of @{ shift } by PerlingTheUK

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.