tangent:

The List::MoreUtils library has the function natatime that helps things like this. Example:

$ cat foo.pl
use strict;
use warnings;
use List::MoreUtils qw(natatime);
my @t = qw(name John number 7 status unknown);
my @u;
my $it = natatime 2, @t;
while (my @vals = $it->()) {
    push @u, join("=",@vals);
}
print join("&",@u),"\n";

$ perl foo.pl
name=John&number=7&status=unknown
[download]

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.