Well I added in the changes, and I can see some improvements, but the array was still empty. So determining the INI file was the issue, I dumped it in hex to find every line including my file mask parameter had trailing blanks. So I would never get a match. It's running fine now. I sent the program to a couple of people this morning, and you've made a perl newbie look like a rock star. Thank you all so much for your help.