ok. i have checked it out. like you said, so long as i adhere to the same methodology, i'm ok. i have some 250+ subroutines in all...and i really don't wanna change all of that code (easy as it may be). besides...doing so might break a library (subdesc.pm) i wrote to read the comments in my libraries (including itself), and creates pretty documentation in HTML format for me! under the hood, the prototype list is used. it's very cool, just don't include the word "return" in a comment, and all's good lol.