in reply to solved: beginners trap: one liner

You are most likely using another CLI than a Unix terminal.

I know it's annoying but Perl has no power over the external quoting rules.

If you're primarily interested in testing short code try starting the debugger with perl -de0

HTH! :)

Cheers Rolf
(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
Wikisyntax for the Monastery FootballPerl is like chess, only without the dice

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom