Here is how we print only particular items from a list:

#!/usr/bin/perl

@gladiators=('Nitro ', 'Blaze ', 'CountFistula ','TheNutcracker ');

print "These gladiators will mess you up: \n\n";

print @gladiators;

print "\n\n";

print "My favorite gladiator is ";

print $gladiators[2];

print "\n\n";

print "My most feared gladiator is ";

print $gladiators[3];

This gives us the result:

  These gladiators will mess you up:

  Nitro Blaze CountFistula TheNutcracker

  My favorite gladiator is CountFistula

  My most feared gladiator is TheNutcracker

Each element in a list has an index number, starting with zero. In this instance, 'Nitro' is at index 0 and 'TheNutcracker' is at index 3. There are four elements in total within the array.

Another way we can print individual elements in an array is like this:

#!/usr/bin/perl

@gladiators=('Nitro ', 'Blaze ', 'CountFistula ','TheNutcracker ');

print "I made up these two gladiators: ";

print $gladiators[2] . "\t" . $gladiators[3];

Giving us:

  I made up these two gladiators: CountFistula        TheNutcracker

You may have noticed that when I wanted to print single elements from the list I switched back to the $ symbol. This is because individually, the items in the list are scalar variables. All of the elements in a list combined and separated by a comma are known as literals. That's just a little reference material for you; it always helps to know the lingo.

I know this may be a little confusing at the moment, but maybe this next section will clear the scalar/literal thing up a bit.