$ perl -E 'for my $d qw( 2006-10-21 15.01.2007 10/31/2005 ) { say $d; }' syntax error at -e line 1, near "$d qw( 2006-10-21 15.01.2007 10/31/2005 )" Execution of -e aborted due to compilation errors. $ perl -E 'for my $d (qw( 2006-10-21 15.01.2007 10/31/2005 )) { say $d; }' 2006-10-21 15.01.2007 10/31/2005