I was a bit surprised by 100_000 not being recognised as a number but then I tried this

print 3 + '0xdeadbeef';
Argument "0xdeadbeef" isn't numeric in addition (+) at ...
3

print 3 + 0xdeadbeef;
3735928562

print 3+ '100_000';
Argument "100_000" isn't numeric in addition (+) at ...
103

print 3+ 100_000;
100003
[download]

Which I guess means that the code used to extract a number from a string at runtime is a different routine to that used for parsing numeric constants at compile time. Which is slightly disappointing, but is probably done that way for very good reasons.

I just wish that the version of Scalar-List-Utils on the AS 5.8 list included the compiled XS code. That is that possible isn't it?