Perl arrays are a fundamental and flexible feature of the language—great for storing ordered lists of scalars (like strings or numbers). Here’s a breakdown to get you rolling:

📦 What Is an Array in Perl?

• A Perl array is a variable that holds an ordered list of scalar values
• Arrays are prefixed with @ when referenced, but individual elements use $ because they’re scalars

my @colors = ('red', 'green', 'blue');

🛠 Accessing Array Elements

• Use zero-based indexing: the first element is at index 0

print $colors[0];  # prints 'red'
print $colors[2];  # prints 'blue'

🎭 Modifying Arrays

• Add elements:
  • push @array, $value; — adds to the end
  • unshift @array, $value; — adds to the beginning
• Remove elements:
  • pop @array; — removes from the end
  • shift @array; — removes from the beginning

🔄 Looping Through an Array

foreach my $color (@colors) {
    print "$color\n";
}

Or using a C-style loop:

for (my $i = 0; $i < @colors; $i++) {
    print $colors[$i], "\n";
}

📐 Other Handy Array Tricks

• Array size: $size = scalar @colors;
• Last index: $last_index = $#colors;
• Slice of array: @slice = @colors[0, 2]; # gets ‘red’ and ‘blue’
• Sort an array: @sorted = sort @colors;
• Reverse an array: @reversed = reverse @colors;