like i said in a previous post (although maybe not fast enough for you to catch it ) i didn't add strict and warnings just for posting. I've adjusted all the flaws everyone has pointed out. I guess i was confused i thought you always had to use the ampersand for method calls. I still get the same string as an array reference error. can somebody please point me in the right direction on that now? EDIT: didnt see the code example, working on it :)