I honestly don't know how you made it to your 8th lab without knowing anything about Perl...

I realize that you're not majoring in computers. You did however sign up for the course! If you fail it, you'll have to start fresh with the same class or a class that very well could be much harder. If you read the textbook and do the assignments yourself, you should pass.

You say the book has a llama on the cover so I'm guessing that it's "Learning Perl". You don't mention what edition though. Read every chapter up to and including the chapter on "Basic I/O". This will get you familiar with the things that you will need to finish this homework assignment. The chapter on "Basic I/O" will explain <> (the diamond operator).