c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -MData::Dump -e "print 'Enter a string and I will determine the data type: '; chomp($_ = ); dd 'A:', $_; ;; if ($_ = (m/^[\$]\w/)) { print qq{\n'$_' is a scalar data type\n}; } dd 'B:', $_; ;; if ($_ = (m/^[\@]\w/)) { print qq{\n'$_' is an array data type\n}; } dd 'C:', $_; " Enter a string and I will determine the data type: $scalar ("A:", "\$scalar") '1' is a scalar data type ("B:", 1) ("C:", "") c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -MData::Dump -e "print 'Enter a string and I will determine the data type: '; chomp($_ = ); dd 'A:', $_; ;; if ($_ = (m/^[\$]\w/)) { print qq{\n'$_' is a scalar data type\n}; } dd 'B:', $_; ;; if ($_ = (m/^[\@]\w/)) { print qq{\n'$_' is an array data type\n}; } dd 'C:', $_; " Enter a string and I will determine the data type: @ra ("A:", "\@ra") ("B:", "") ("C:", "")