The head of this thread is presented as a reusable solution, not as a "here's what I wrote while I was learning, but don't use it for anything".

So, I said "no, don't use this as a reusable solution, use this CPAN module instead". If that's seems condescending or curt, then so be it. But that's not the intention.

If the original poster had clearly labled it as "don't use this", then I won't post any CPAN-one-liners in reply. If it's posted as "this is what I have so far, are there any better ways", I would have offered advice, and probably gotten around to a CPAN solution as well.

But when I see a posting that takes 20 lines to do what 3 can, and poorly at that, and presented as a "please reuse this solution", I will speak up. You can count on that. Many people count on me to do that, in fact.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker