note bart <blockquote><i> of course, you might want to handle a method that can return 0 by using <code>defined</code></i></blockquote> Or use the trick that some other modules use: return <code>"0E0"</code> or <code>"0 but true"</code> for zero, as a string. These are both true and 0, and do not produce warnings when converted into a number, the former because it's a normal floating point format, the latter because it's a hardcoded exception in perl.<P>Now I come to think of it: you can use any normal format for zero, as long as it's not <code>"0"</code>, for example <code>"0.0"</code>. 230799 230826