I didnt think of doing it that way. Thanks, that is another way. I agree. Messing with the special variables is not the best way to do it. However, I was looking for the example of what caused the introduction of the spaces when the list was printed within double quotes. Modifying $" was just for verification that it would prevent it. It was more of understanding why perl was reacting the way it was in that case then best way to prevent it.

Would not just printing the list like I did in the first example of using my_sub4() -- print @$x,"\n" -- without interpolation be better since it has the same output without the use of an additional function call?

This actually brings up another interesting realization about what perl is doing. When interpolating a list within double-quoted strings, the elements are seperated by the value of $" which default is a space. After some messing with code, it appears that when the list is used like this print @$x,"\n" the list is passed comma seperated to the print function. The output has no spaces like I was expecting. This can be seen when you modify the ouput field seperator $,= ' ' before the print and you will get the spaces back into the print. This doesnt effect your example, because the whole array is joined into a string instead of a list of ellements. Am I correct in understanding whats going on?

So it would appear that my way might be better for small lists, but I would think it might cause problem with bigger ones. Is there a limit to the number of comma seperated values you can pass to print?? Your oppinion on the the two?

Thanks for your help and suggestions.
zzSPECTREz