I like that :-) I was using Compress::Bzip2 because I couldn't figure out how to capture both STDOUT and STDERR from "bzcat <file> | wc -l". This gives me both :-) (And I've found other solutions by googling just now, too) The entry under "qx" in perlop says it's "easiest" to re-direct them to files and then read the files in again, and I mistakenly understood "easiest = only way" :-(