May be it's just late and I need to sleep over it, but consider: map { $_ => 1 } (a..c); map { $x = $_; "$x" => 1 } (a..c); map { ("$_" => 1) } (a..c); map { "$_" => 1 } (a..c); the first three lines are fine, the fourth produces an error: syntax error at /tmp/oops line 4, near "} (" what's wrong with $_ stringification as the key? and it only happens without () around the key/value pair. Originally I planned to do: ... = map { "key_$_" => 1 } (a..c); It seems to happen with all perls. __________________________________________________________________ Stas Bekman JAm_pH ------> Just Another mod_perl Hacker http://stason.org/ mod_perl Guide ---> http://perl.apache.org mailto:stas@stason.org http://use.perl.org http://apacheweek.com http://modperlbook.org http://apache.org http://ticketmaster.comThread Next