CHAPTER 39. PERLVAR 39.1. DESCRIPTION it really means But don’t put which means Default is " \ 034", the same as SUBSEP in awk . If your keys contain binary data there might not be any safe value for $; . (Mnemonic: comma (the syntactic subscript separator) is a semi-semicolon. Yeah, I know, it’s pretty lame, but $, is already taken for something more important.) Consider using "real" multidimensional arrays as described in perllol . The output format for printed numbers. This variable is a half-hearted attempt to emulate awk ’s OFMT variable. There are times, however, when awk and Perl have di ff ering notions of what counts as numeric. The initial value is "%. n g", where n is the value of the macro DBL_DIG from your system’s float.h . This is di ff erent from awk ’s default OFMT setting of "%.6g", so you need to set $# explicitly to get awk ’s value. (Mnemonic: # is the number sign.) Use of $# is deprecated. The current page number of the currently selected output channel. Used with formats. (Mnemonic: % is page number in nro ff .) The current page length (printable lines) of the currently selected output channel. Default is 60. Used with formats. (Mnemonic: = has horizontal lines.) The number of lines left on the page of the currently selected output channel. Used with formats. (Mnemonic: lines_on_page - lines_printed.) 667 @LAST_MATCH_START $ - $ FORMAT_LINES_LEFT HANDLE- > format_lines_left(EXPR) $ = $ FORMAT_LINES_PER_PAGE HANDLE- > format_lines_per_page(EXPR) $ % $ FORMAT_PAGE_NUMBER HANDLE- > format_page_number(EXPR) $ # $foo{$a,$b,$c} $foo{join($;, $a, $b, $c)} @foo{$a,$b,$c} # a slice--note the @ ($foo{$a},$foo{$b},$foo{$c})