I tried this on my own system (perl 5.6.0) and the script runs, however on our main server (Perl 5.004_04), it gives a syntax error on the substitution command and the following match line (though not the final match command (hunn?).
As an extra challenge, can you solve the problem for perl 5.004_04

Also, $rest contains the text after the elements in @list, not the subset that matches the contects of @list - which is the bit I'm after.

If it helps, I'm guarenteed that the segment I'm looking for is always at the start of the string

:)

-- Ian Stuart A man depriving some poor village, somewhere, of a first-class idiot.