Thanks to all of you. I used the "long hand" sytle and it works like a charm.

As for the "short hand", still can't seem to figure this one out. I've tried the command in ms-dos and in a pl file. Is it perhaps only a unix thing? If it helps to know, it does create the back-up file but gives the following error: "Useless use of a constant in void context at -e line 1."

On that note, I feel like I'm totally missing out here. Should I be using unix to get access to perl's full potential. I know, what a newb question ...