Not glamorous but sturdy and works for text just as well as numbers:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;

my $scalar = '1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8';
my @array = split(/\,/,$scalar);

my $flag = 1;

my ($element, @odds, @evens, $odd, $even);

foreach $element(@array)
{
    if ($flag==1)
    {
        push (@odds, $element); 
        $flag=2;
    }
    else
    {
        push (@evens, $element); 
        $flag=1;
    }
}

print "Odd elements: ";
foreach $odd(@odds)
{
    print "$odd ";
}
print "\nEven elements: ";
foreach $even(@evens)
{
    print "$even ";
}
[download]

Hope this of some help.

Chris