note rovf <p> Maybe it's worth to include the following, which has bitten me once too: One common use is to get regexp from an external source - for instance, your commandline - into your program, so you end up having somewhere something like: <code> if($line =~ /$pattern/) { ... } </code> The trap here is when $pattern happens to be the null string, yielding the Regexp <c>//</c>. This special regexp, unless it is used as argument to the <c>split</c> function, means: "Match again the most recently encountered regexps", which can lead to pretty bizarre program behaviour. </p> <div class="pmsig"><div class="pmsig-683288"> --&nbsp;<br> Ronald Fischer &lt;ynnor@mm.st&gt; </div></div> 9096 9096