Golo, thanks for catching and explaining this - now I understand - it's amazing how long I've misunderstood this operator.

I've never read past the

If the argument before the ? is true, the argument before the : is ret
+urned, otherwise the argument after the : is returned.
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part of the docs.

Your example

my $passwd_check = $saved_pass eq $eword  ?  "good" : "fail";
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makes my login page work perfectly now.. thanks again.

Harold