DanDan, welcome to the Perl community.

Others have already pointed out that there are several modules available that handle command line options.

However, since you describe yourself as both a Perl novice and a C-programmer, here are some comments that I hope will be helpful:

• Use Super Search to see similar discussions, e.g. at How to pass and retrieve command-line arguments specifying search conditions?.
• Always begin your programs with 'use strict' and 'use warnings'. This will eliminate at stroke many hours of frustration.
• Perl has no build-in switch or case statements. If you have a copy of Programming Perl 3rd edition to hand, Ch4 pp124-125 suggests some 'Perl-ish' alternatives. See also What is the most efficient perl switch/case statement?.
• Again from PP 3rd ed, p589 has a list of common traps for C programmers new to Perl. This info also appears in perldoc perltrap.