You are missing the point that it is a really, really bad idea to do this for reasons explained by everyone else. Use a hash instead:

foreach my $var (@array) {
  my @val = split /=/, $var, 2;
  $hash{$val[0]} = $val[1];
}
[download]

UPDATE
I must have accidentally hit the wrong reply. This was meant as a reply to spaz above.