Understood the meaning of the line in perl.Thx. The problem got solved about the number of character inputs when my unix administrator ported the program to another unix box with bash.So , it really was a problem/limitation with the env (the unix env where i was testing the script)and not perl.Now , the script is taking any length of input in the new unix box and the problem is solved. Thanks to all of you for your inputs. However , Though perl script problem is solved but just for my knowledge sake I am still "googling" around to know what was the problem or how could the limitation be removed in Unix env. where I was developing the script. Gyatso