Here is the code that produced the strange results:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use DBI;
use strict;

my $sid = 'somedb';
my $user = 'someuser';
my $pass = 'somepassword';

my $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:Oracle:$sid",$user,$pass,
                       {AutoCommit => 0})
          or die "$DBI::errstr";

my $sqlstring = "SELECT EMP_NAME,EMP_NUM FROM EMP
                        WHERE EMP_NAME = 'JOHN'";

my $sth = $dbh->prepare($sqlstring) or die "$DBI::errstr";

my $rv = $sth->execute or die "$DBI::errstr";

my @fields = $sth->fetchrow_array();

$sth->finish;
$dbh->disconnect;

my @temp = split (//,$fields[0]);
foreach (@temp) {print "$_\n"); # this prints the blank 
                                # lines between chars
[download]

OUTPUT FROM CODE ABOVE:
$>null_test.pl
J

O

H

N

$>

Software versions:

Oracle8i Enterprise Edition Release 8.1.7.0.0
perl, version 5.005_03 built for alpha-dec_osf
$DBI::VERSION = "1.13";
$DBD::Oracle::VERSION = '1.03';

Thanks for looking at this