note ikegami <blockquote>In C, the keyword 'static' has a very particular meaning and purpose. It denotes both persistence and limited visiblity. </blockquote> Yes, and the mechanism provides the same persistence and limited visibility in Perl's memory space. <blockquote>But the main problem is that what the macros actually do is not explained. </blockquote> Which one do you think isn't explained? Unless I'm missing one, the example explains exactly how to use each one. <blockquote>You try to come across all superior, by taking the documentation as gospel and good, and quoting it verbatim, rather than actually thinking through the implications.</blockquote> Your argument is lost because every premise is completely wrong. <ul> <li>I didn't take the docs as gospel. I've actually used the mechanism recently. It was easy, it did the trick, and it should do the trick for the OP. <li>I didn't quote any docs. <li>I did think through the implications: It solves the OP's problem cleanly and simply. Perhaps you are over-thinking it or trying to make a political statement. </ul> <blockquote>Instead of just trying to help the OP, you try to make political capital from a documentation reference. </blockquote> That makes no sense. I simply provided a link that explained how to use the mechanism *you* suggested, since you completely failed to help the OP in that regard. 929097 929205