Man, my newbie-dom really manifested itself in the form of not being able to see the way you used operators as short hand. I went through my sources though and to put it in newbie terms: This...

'' ne $items[0]
    ? $buffer = $items[0]
    : $items[0] = $buffer;
[download]

...is the same as this...

if ('' ne $items[0]) {
    $buffer = $items[0]
} else {
    $items[0] = $buffer
}
[download]

right? I think this is going to work out nicely. Thank you all so much for the help. --- you can't be what you were...so you better start being just what you are....