I've done the change and this is the new message delivered to root:

--- The Following addresses had permanet fatal errors ----
"| /home/me/Documents/webtest/mail/strip.pl
(reason : service unavailble)
(expanded from : <me@localhost.localdomain>)

---- Transcript of session follows ----
smrsh : strip.pl not avalible for sendmail programs
554 5.0.0 Service Unavalible
[download]

by compile properly do you mean run it and as long as theres no errors / warnings it's okay or do you actually have to compile it? it does work fine from the command line This is a standalone laptop so it doesn't matter if mail is lost, but the idea is good if i ever get the thing to work! O/T : p.s. This might be my last reply until after the weekend which starts in 25 minutes, and finishes one hour later than normal because of the clocks falling back :o)