diff --git a/tests/getpart.pm b/tests/getpart.pm
index ea54fb90eb..9883db22b0 100644
--- a/tests/getpart.pm
+++ b/tests/getpart.pm
@@ -244,7 +244,7 @@ sub loadtest {
             print STDERR "file $file is empty!\n";
             return 1;
         }
-        my $prolog = @xml[0];
+        my $prolog = $xml[0];
         chomp $prolog;
         if($prolog ne '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="US-ASCII"?>') {
             print STDERR "file $file missing the XML prolog!\n";