Thank you for the alternative approach atcroft. My sample code is an exact representation of what I was processing. It was a simple, straightforward (or so I thought) substitution in a string that happened to be a file path, and the part of the path that contained "\C" was the culprit, as AnomalousMonk pointed out. One of the things I've always liked about Perl is timtowtdi. Thanks again for your input.