my @i;

while (@array) {
        last if (scalar @array < 9);
        push @i, shift @array for 0 .. 8;
        print join ("\n", @i);
        print "\n------------------------------------------\n";
        @i = ();
        }
[download]

Hi,

Well that code is a step in the right direction. Couple things though, you can put the test inside the while loop instead of using "last". You can grab the first 9 items off of the array and delete them from the array in one operation using splice. This lets you avoid using the "@i" array. So:

my @array = map {$_ * 10} 1 .. 20;   # test data
while (@array > 8) {
        print join "\n", splice(@array,0,9);
        print "\n--------------------\n";
}
[download]

Note that if the array isn't divisible by 9, the last few items will be silently ignored. If you'd rather see them, it's safe to just omit the "> 8".. splice will return whatever remains even though it's not the full 9 items.

lovely! adding 'splice' to my lexicon thanks