sub nextuniq{
  my ($test_item,$item_list) = @_;
  my $new_item;
  my $found = 1;
  if (! UNIVERSAL::isa( $item_list, "ARRAY" )){
    require Carp;
    Carp::croak( "Arg 2 must be an array reference\n"); 
    
  } 
  while ($found) {
    $found  = 0;
    foreach $new_item (@$item_list) {
      if ($new_item eq $test_item) {
        $test_item++;
        $found = 1;
      }
    }
  }
  $new_item = $test_item;
  $new_item;
}