How do I define *MYFILE? I've been doing it using open(MYFILE,'>>out.txt'); But to write to that file, it has to be opened, written to, and then closed. So I'm not sure how to define MYFILE prior to calling the print_to() function. Would it now be a file handle, and pass something like $fh to the subroutine? I don't know what words to use to look up more about your method of passing variables using the ? and :