=over =item chop VARIABLE =item chop LIST =item chop Chops off the last character of a string and returns the character chopped. It's used primarily to remove the newline from the end of an input record, but is much more efficient than C because it neither scans nor copies the string. If VARIABLE is omitted, chops C<$_>. Example: while (<>) { chop; # avoid \n on last field @array = split(/:/); #... } You can actually chop anything that's an lvalue, including an assignment: chop($cwd = `pwd`); chop($answer = ); If you chop a list, each element is chopped. Only the value of the last C is returned. Note that C returns the last character. To return all but the last character, use C. =back