I'm not sure how you think split can return a list of dirs for every line, especially since the lines containing "ms" don't contains dirs.

my main goal is to put the hostname in to $client and the dir into @dir and each client starts with ms.

"starts with" implies split probably isn't the right tool.
That you don't have a list of similar items implies split probably isn't the right tool.

Assuming the data is as you showed in in your original post, and assuming that the hostnames are in square brackets and you simply didn't bother to fix your post, the following should do the trick.

my $file = '/scripts/clients';
open(my $fh, '<', $file)
   or die("Unable to open file \"$file\": $!\n");

my $hostname;
my @dirs;

while (<$fh>) {
   chomp;

   if (/^\[/) {
      backup($client, \@dirs) if defined($hostname);

      s/^\[//; s/\]$//;
      $hostname = $_;
      @dirs = ();
   } else {
      s/^"//; s/"$//;
      push @dirs, $_;
   }
}

backup($client, \@dirs) if defined($hostname);
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DATA is a special name. You shouldn't use it. It's bad to use global variables anyway.

Let me make this clear this script below is working fine. the only thing is instead of getting dir and hostnames from the script itself i need to read from text file. testfile
mshostname1
"/etc/init.d/"
"/var/logs/"
mshostname2"
"/whatever/"
"/more/"
This is the working script


#!/usr/bin/perl


my $server = 'nfserver';
my $scp    = '/usr/bin/scp';
my $time   = localtime;


my @mshost1 = (
        "msname1",
        "/local/home/gloob",
        "/var/spool/cron/crontabs",
        "/local/home/admin/service.etc"
);
my @mshost2 = (
        "msname2",
        "/local/p0/home/gob",
        "/var/spool/cron/crontabs",
        "/local/p0/home/admin/service.etc"
);

sub backup {
my $client = shift;
if ($client eq $client) {
print "About to tar and scp the following folders: @dir\n\n";
system("ssh", $client, "tar -cvvf  $client\.tar.gz @dir");
print("===============================\n");
system("ssh", $client, "scp $client\.tar.gz root\@$server:/export/prod
+ucts/backup/");
} else {
print "could not backup $client\n";
        }
}

sub get_dir_msd {
$client = shift(@mshost1);
@dir = @mshost1;
print "@dir\n";
print "$client\n";
backup($client);
}

sub get_dir_msd2 {
$client = shift(@mshost2);
@dir = @mshost2;
print "@dir\n";
print "$client\n";
backup($client);
}


get_dir_msd("mshost2");
get_dir_msd2("mshost1");
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Let me make this clear this script below is working fine.

So use it.

the only thing is instead of getting dir and hostnames from the script itself i need to read from text file.

I guess you do want to use mine after all.

Can you show some example data? Otherwise we are just guessing.

Ok here is my script that works just fine.

my @mshost1 = (
        "msservername",
        "/local/p0/home/glosefob",
        "/var/spool/cron/crontabs",
        "/local/p0/home/admin/service.etc"
);

sub get_dir {
$client = shift(@mshost1);
@dir = @mshost1;
backup($client);
}
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but boss needs to get hostname and dirs from file like so.
msservername1
"/etc/whatever"
"/etc/whatever"
msservername2
"/etc/whatever"

I think this will do what you want.

use strict;
use warnings;

use YAML;

my %hosts;
my $current_host;
while ( my $line = <DATA> ) {
    chomp $line;
    if ( my ($host) = $line =~ /\[(\w+)\]/ ) {
        $current_host = $host;
        push @{ $hosts{$current_host} }, $host;
    }
    elsif ( my ($dir) = $line =~ /"([^"]+)"/ ){
        push @{ $hosts{$current_host} }, $dir;
    }
}

print Dump \%hosts;

__DATA__
[msservername1]
"/etc/like"
"/etc/whatever"
[msservername2]
"/etc/whatever"
__END__
---
msservername1:
  - msservername1
  - /etc/like
  - /etc/whatever
msservername2:
  - msservername2
  - /etc/whatever
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I don't put the result in @mshost1, @mshost2 etc since I don't know how many there will be and it is bad practice to generate them on the fly. Instead I've put them in a hash keyed on the host name.