$ perl -wE '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 -wE 'for my $d (qw^ 2006-10-21 15.01.2007 10/31/2005 ^) { say $d } ' 2006-10-21 15.01.2007 10/31/2005