note mauke That's the <code><></code> operator. <code>=$something=</code> isn't a simple scalar, so it's equivalent to <code>glob("=$something=")</code>. On the other hand, <code><$something></code> means <code>readline($something)</code>. (For special weirdness, <code><$ something></code> is the same as <code>glob($something)</code>.) <p> See [doc://glob], [doc://readline] and [http://perldoc.com/perl5.8.4/pod/perlop.html#I-O-Operators|I/O Operators in perlop] for details. 426037 426059