im running it "perl output.pl". i dont know which version of perl i was using. what ever comes distributed with mac os x 10.4. i think its 5.8.1-RC3. thats what it says when i type "man perlmacosx".

updated...
ive just tried it on a winxp machine with activeperl version 5.8.8 build 819 installed. went into cmd and typed in "perl output.pl" and the same thing happenned. just 1 line of blank and then the program ended.

update...
i copy and pasted into notepad in windows rather than copying the file from mac to windows. it works! it must be the way the copy and paste messed up the formatting of the code.