Doh! You absolutely right, toolic. In one of my perl searches on the web I saw a site that announced Perl 5.8. I assumed that this was new but is, in fact, really old. Thanks for pointing that out. In addition, apparently my bifocals need an upgrade since I missed the 5.16 vs 5.6. Ai yi yi! I do have 5.6 on my workstation. I will start over. When I have something intelligent to say I'll get back to you. I am really new (obviously) to Perl and DBI. I need to get acclimated.