Hhmm, so, I'm sitting here looking at your question and my obvious answer, and I think maybe I'm seeing the point you maybe were trying to get me to see.....the $$ prototype isn't really a limitation, it's just a declaration of how many scalar arguments a function takes, like a <cmp> function, for example...or perhaps it's late and I'm thinking a bit too hard on this one.....

UPDATE:

OK, so I was thinking too hard...apparently it seems my original notions about prototypes making functions less generic is shared by quite a few of you out there. Well, this goes fantastic with one of my other recent posts, lol, especially related to planetscape's "brain fart" reply, which this last reply of mine most definitely seems to qualify as..*turns red* ;P