The perl split function is handy for breaking up a string into several values.  For example if you are reading lines from a file and want to split that line into some different values, manipulate them, and spit them into a new file.  If you're lucky, the line is delimited by something like a ^ (carrot) charcater.

So, source line is something like: 

larry^moe^curly

You can use a one liner like this to break up the line into 3 values...

($value1,$value2,$value3)=split(/\^/,$line);

Note how we had to escaple the ^ with a backslash.  So now ...

print "$value1 --- $value2 --- $value3";

will print "larry --- moe --- curly".  If there were numbers, you can quickly read in a data file, calculate some values and spill out a new results file.  Or split a string into component values to be used later... be creative!