note NetWallah Here is the "canonical" way of counting matches into a scalar: <c> ~$ perl -e 'my $x=()="Twinkle twinkle little star"=~/twinkle/ig; print qq|$x\n|' 2 </c> Note the use of () as an intermediate to switch between scalar and list contexts.<br> I Sympathize because I too had trouble wrapping my head around this. <!-- Node text goes above. Div tags should contain sig only --> <div class="pmsig"><div class="pmsig-159887"> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<small> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; All great truths begin as blasphemies. <br> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &#8213; George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950) </small></p> </div></div> 960264 960264