c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le "use Tk; use Tk::LabEntry; ;; my $MW = tkinit; ;; my $entrytext = ''; my $le = $MW->LabEntry( -label => 'chars entered so far: 0', -textvariable => \$entrytext, -validate => 'key', -invalidcommand => undef, ); $le->configure( -validatecommand => sub { showcount($le, @_) }, ); $le->pack; ;; MainLoop; ;; print qq{final entry: '$entrytext'}; ;; sub showcount { my ($widget, $newtext, ) = @_; ;; my $label = $widget->cget(-label); $label =~ s{ \d+ \z }{ length $newtext }xmse; $widget->configure(-label => $label); 1; } "