Ahhhh, you say this now :) When you hear 'how do I remove whitespace from a string?' 1000 times, you become a little tired of it and start telling people to RTFM :) That is why places like c.l.p.misc and EFnet #perl (which I am on) can sometimes seem hostile. I don't always agree with the agressive manner that is sometimes used, but it is easier to help people when you can tell they are trying to help themselves, and not just use everyone else to 'do their homework'.