Update: Argh! I just re-read the node and discovered I just wrote a bad re-implementation of esskar's code.

Update2: Here is essentially what I was thinking, implemented correctly:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my @array = qw( a..a b...b c....c d.....d e......e f.......f g........
+g h.........h i..........i j.j k..k l...l );

foreach (
                do {
                        my @subset = splice( @array,0,8 );
                        my @chunk = @subset[1..6];
                }
        ) {

        s/\.//g;
        print $_,"\n";

}
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Here is what I orginally posted:

And on that note...

my @chunk = splice(@array,0,8);
s/\.//g foreach (@smallchunk);
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Or skipping the intermediate array:

s/\.//g foreach ( splice(@array,0,8) );
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I suppose I should test that code. I think in Perl, but I have the vocabulary of a two-year-old ;)