Some irony - I am reporting a bug that I induced with a previous bug report ... sorry about that. mps_Stage, on or about line 679 should be changed from while( <CONFIG> ) { s/#.*$//; #remove comments ($var, $val) = split("\s",$_,2); ($x, $val) = split("\s", $val,2) if $val =~ /^= /; # remove = to while( <CONFIG> ) { chomp; s/#.*$//; #remove comments ($var, $val) = split(/\s/,$_,2); ($val) = (split(/\s/,$val,2))[1] if $val =~ /^= /; # remove = The chomp is not essential, but right. The /\s/ is a pattern. The string "\s" is just "\s", so it splits on the letter s. The change to the last line is because $x is not needed, and this makes that clearer ;-) -- Gregory J. Sharp email: [log in to unmask] Wilson Synchrotron Laboratory url: http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~gregor Dryden Rd ph: +1 607 255 4882 Ithaca, NY 14853 fax: +1 607 255 8062