if I add waitfor('/NULL/') it will timeout long enough to run the command. but it then fails because of a bad match. I found this info in the telnet doc. "In an array context, just the output generated by the command is returned, one line per element. In other words, all the characters in between the echoed back command string and the prompt are returned. If the command happens to return no output, an array containing one element, the null string is returned. This is so the array will indicate true in a boolean context" How do I match this null string?