Pardon my being behind the times, but that is definately the case with Perl versions 5.003 and older. In my old copy of Programming Perl Second Ed., there is a footnote on page 90 that mentions burning lots of memory "under the current implementation."

So maybe you should keep that one iterative. My mistake. :)

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
F--F--F--F--F--F--F--F--
(the triplet paradiddle)