Thank you for generously considering my question and providing an elegant solution,

I had already tried the array form as a solution, but it was inadequate for my purposes due to my limited understanding of Perl.

The string in question is extracted from an SQL table. The values placed in serialized variables are used as flags that govern print statements. Properly deployed they will allow granular control over what is written to a logfile without having to alter Perl code. All adjustments can be made by changing the control string in the SQL table.

Thanks again, I truly appreciate your input.

R_D