Why fix this line when you should be doing it a different way?

If all you want to do is grab the second field LCD-S you should try this: $BKSIC_MODEL[$i] = (split(' ', $line))[1]; If you're actually trying to grab all of the fields and use them to populate the array @BKSIC_MODEL then try this: @BKSIC_MODEL = split(' ', $line); see perlfunc:split

buckaduck