cat test.ksh

#!/usr/bin/ksh

VAR="Dear Friends \n How are you? \n Have a nice day \n"
export VAR
echo "Inside test.ksh";
./test.pl

#!/usr/bin/perl

print "Inside test.pl \n";
print "$VAR";

./test.ksh
Inside test.ksh
Inside test.pl

Having exported it from your your Shell script, within the Perl, invoked from same script you will find that print "$ENV{VAR}\n" is what you want. Export exports a variable into the environment and the %ENV hash is how Perl accesses them. Regards Neil