note NetWallah Absolutely agree with the peeve. <p>I would like to see this coded like this: <code> use strict; use warnings; use constant {OUTPUT_AUTOFLUSH_BUFFERED =>0, OUTPUT_AUTOFLUSH_UNBUFFERED=>1}; $| = OUTPUT_AUTOFLUSH_UNBUFFERED; ... </code> This makes the meaning MUCH clearer. 280025 280025