I think your and moritz's read (the bit about eq) is most likely what the OP meant by "not working". moritz and I were writing our posts about the same time. I missed the eq/== problem when I read the OP's code and didn't see moritz's post until after I posted mine.

I rather suspect I got distracted by the "just for fun" comment coupled with the lack of explanation of what didn't work. For a few seconds I actually thought the post was maybe even a well-meant spoof of some of our less articulate questions.

But then on second thought it felt trivializing, though I honestly wasn't sure who or what was being trivialized: the OP's own curiosity in learning Perl or our efforts at answers. One should never trivialize efforts at learning - even if that learning is only for pleasure. Some would argue that learning (and coding) for pleasure is in fact the purest form of learning and the *least* deserving of trivialization.

Best, beth