Hi,
There are a couple of possibilities.
First you forgot to give the script execute permission
chmod 775 filename.pl
Secondly you have to tell it what program language your script is written in. UNIX doesn't have File extension association like Windows does.
There is no reason on UNIX a SH script can't end in .pl, although realistically this just causes confusion. try to avoid that.
The first line of the all EXECUTABLE UNIX SCRIPT is supposed to be....
#!<program>
where <program> is the program which your script is written for. If you forget this line or it isn't the first line of the script most UNIX systems assume /bin/sh.
For example
#!/bin/sh ( For Sh script )
#!/bin/ksh ( For ksh scripts. )
#!/usr/bin/csh ( for csh script )
#!/usr/local/bin/perl ( for perl )
Your paths maybe different than these. Typcially from the command prompt you can specify
which <program>
and it will tell you where in your search path <program> is located.
Update the first line of your script accordingly.
If you want more help concering the #! syntax and perl try
man perlrun
( assuming you have the full perl installed correctly on your unix system )
hope this helps.