ikegami, jethro, thanks for your kind help. Ok, that is pretty crazy but it makes sense, and I suspected something along those lines (that it is stored as \nbed instead of bed. But how can it? It is read from a text file composed in vi that reads: 
bed-There is some sheets and a pillow here-pillow-Nice soft pillow ..-
+sheets-Long white sheets .. You slept in them last night.

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I dont know where the \n comes from. I would suspect that the \n would terminate the line (from a CR) not initiate it. ta

In reply to Re^4: Lose first element of hash in hash .. by theantler
in thread Lose first element of hash in hash .. by theantler

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