I don't disagree with that. But is it the functionality of the module to check if the IP is in a valid rage, or it it the function of Net::Ping, to "ping" or attempt to ping, the ip address supplied? Again, at least in 2.43 version, the Net::Ping did not completely exit the running perl script. In the 2.61 & 2.63 versions, the script errors out and stops any further execution