Thanks for the quick reply.

In my real source code in the offending application, the offending array is constructed from a split of a tab-delimited line. I am using split("\t",$line,99999) to generate the line.

Hmmm... When I run the test below on the command line, it seems to behave correctly I have a feeling that I need to take a close look at the offending code. All the splits which I am using to generate the array are providing the field number option, which inserts undefs into the placeholders. Well, at least the answers I got here helped me cross out some of the possible sources of error. Thanks for the help.

bash-2.03$ cat test.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl

my $line = "hello\tworld\tI\tam\ta\tline\twithout\ttabs";
my $line_2 = "hello\tworld\tI\tam\ta\tline\twith\ttabs\t\t\t\t"; 
my @array = split("\t",$line,9999); 
my @array_2 = split("\t",$line_2,9999);
my @array_3 = split("\t",$line_2);
print "Scalar of array 1 =",scalar @array,"\n";
print "Scalar of array 2 =",scalar @array_2,"\n";
print "Scalar of array 3 =",scalar @array_3,"\n";

bash-2.03$ perl test.pl
Scalar of array 1 =8
Scalar of array 2 =12
Scalar of array 3 =8
bash-2.03$
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Ronan
www.roasp.com