Thanks! ..I'm really going to have to mull over all the info - Perl syntax is "killing" me - I came from mainframes, FORTRAN, ASSEMBLER, etc... What I did do was include the following in my source code:
use bignum;
print MATH::BIGINT->new("0xbe91cfb586466d02");
Now, interestingly enough, the following printed out:
1373198511737814553812 - ..where did the final '12' come from? ..was it the semicolon? ..and how do I get rid of it?
Again, thanks for your help (& patience)...spooky