Yes, I am trying to force the top of page to print without issuing a number of writes. The Gov't contract uses perl 5.005.03 and upgrading is difficult. The following is the prtion of code where the problem occurs. The logic stating with: print ("what the hell!!!\n"); executes however the decrement to the $- variable does not take as wel as setting $- to 0 and the write of the format top does not execute.

 while (%data = &dbnextrow($dbproc05,1))
 {
    if ($numRows == 0)
       { $numRows = 49;
       }
    if ($first_time == 1 )
    {
     $dataRows = 1;
     $old_edgar_id = $data{"edgar_id"};
     $edgar_id = $data{"edgar_id"};
     $blk_count = $data{"blk_count"};
     $first_time = 0;
     format_top_name REPORT "REPORT_TOP";
     format_name REPORT "BLANK_FORMAT";
     write (REPORT);
     $numRows = $numRows - 11;
    }
      $edgar_id = $data{"edgar_id"};
      if ($old_edgar_id eq $edgar_id)
      {
       format_name REPORT "DATA_FORMAT2";
       write (REPORT);
       $numRows--;
      }
      else
      {
       $old_edgar_id = $data{"edgar_id"};
       $blk_count = $data{"blk_count"};
       if ( $numRows >= 7 )
       {
         format_name REPORT "COL_NAME_FORMAT";
         write (REPORT);
         $numRows = $numRows - 7;
       }
       else
       {
         print ("what the hell!!!\n");
         $- --;
         $- --;
         $- --;
         $- --;
         $- = 0;
         format_top_name REPORT "REPORT_TOP";
         format_name REPORT "BLANK_FORMAT";
         write (REPORT);
         $numRows = $numRows = 49;
       }

       $accession_number = $data{"accession_number"};
       $sub_type = $data{"$sub_type"};
       $received_date = $data{"received_date"};
       format_name REPORT "DATA_FORMAT2";
       write (REPORT);
       $numRows--;
      }
 }
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