The attached patch makes $| initialize itself to the appropriate value when it's first created, fixing bug 20001122.006, wherein $ perl -le 'print $| = ~$|' is found to print 0 but $ perl -le '$a=$|; print $| = ~$|' is found to print 1. If this solution makes sense, are there other magic variables that need this sort of initialization? Ben -- Benjamin Holzman ECNvantage Corp. Chief Technical Officer 295 Park Avenue S., Suite 7C (212) 358-0436 : bah@ecnvantage.com New York, NY, 10010 $ perl -le 'print join $" ,reverse map ucfirst ,qw{ hacker perl another just}'Thread Next