On a tangent, your shebang line draws my attention. I remember -w from the distant past. I looked up -s and it parses switches, but this code doesn't use any. So, is this just something you always use for quick test scripts? I also read about -l but don't see what it would be used for. (And does it notice that the following character is not an octnum so it gangs the -w switch and leaves the argument blank?)