in reply to Array loops and assignments

The real problem I see is that if you really are referring to values by their index (regardless of how you accomplish that), that's probably a rather serious design problem. Then again, you say:

The requirement is that 8 elements of the array be stored in separate attributes. So instead of doing a single-assignment for each attribute, I was hoping to just put it in a loop and assign it to the corresponding variable.

That's actually quite a common requirement, most often seen in sub argument processing:

my ($name, $number) = @_;

For longer and/or variable lists of arguments, hashes provide more flexibility and basically a free namespace:

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use 5.012;
use warnings;

sub read_order_back {
    my %courses = (
        appetizer => 'soup',
        salad     => 'tossed',
        @_
    );
    die "No main?!" unless defined $courses{main};
    print "\u$courses{appetizer} to start, followed by a\n"
        . "lovely $courses{salad} salad, with $courses{main}\n"
        . "for your entree";
    print ", and finally a\nstunning $courses{dessert}" 
        if defined $courses{dessert};
    print ". Bon apetit!\n";
}
   
read_order_back(main => 'ribs');

[download]

Output:

Soup to start, followed by a
lovely tossed salad, with ribs
for your entree. Bon apetit!

[download]

Update: Whoops, now I'm hungry.

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom