We're all operating on incomplete information here. Our understanding of the poster's problem is limited to our interpretation of his few written lines. We all like to see code to overcome the perceived omissions but this assumes the code mirrors the OP's intentions. Often we draw on our own experience to re-interpret the context. In essence saying "I has this same problem once and It was because of my mis-understanding of XYZ."

If the OP's post is unclear is it because of a lack of intelligence on the OP's part? More likely english is not the OP's native language or the poster is tired and frustrated. I myself have written posts that were less than clear ( to be kind to myself ) and not to the point.

One of things I had to learn when I graduated from a do-er to a teach-er was that people approach learning in different ways. Internally I divide them into the Verbals, the Visuals, and the Readers based on how they absorb information the best. The problem is that in reading their posts it is rare to be able to tell before hand which camp I'm speaking to. Does the OP need a code snippet, a book reference, or a re-interpretation of something he may have already read?

Now most coders are Readers with some characteristics of the Visuals thrown in. Thus the usual response of RTFM. But not all coders are Readers and I've even known a few very good ones that were Verbals. In addition, we've all experienced time when the manual has left us baffled. So it's hard to say precisely what the optimum response is to any question.

I also stop and reminded myself now and again the purpose of this forum, that is to leave a repository of Perl knowledge, otherwise we'd just direct all the SOPWs to the Chatterbox. I hope that my own preference has grown such as to leave a record that may be helpful outside of it's expressed recipient.

I really lost track of where this post is going except to say that I find answering SOPW to be a real crap-shoot.