note ikegami <blockquote><p><i>Assigning to the empty list forces list context upon the RHS. </i></blockquote> <p>So does <c>system</c>, but you don't see me using <c>system</c> to force list context. Your code supports what I say: <c> print ( 'a', 'b', foo ); # adcde print +() = ( 'a', 'b', foo ); # nothing </c> <p>Assigning to the empty list does more than force context. It's not a good choice to force list context. 738558 738776