Wow, good call :) I think I was too tired to realize that difference before, though I had in fact consulted the manual. Thanks!

I've been there many times :) mystified is code for erroneous assumption

Sometimes you know which op/sub you're fuzzy on, so it means a simple perldoc -f split, but sometimes you can't zero in on your unknown, so it means writing a few programs, even if the assumption turns out not to be yours

Its a good thing perl has features for checking lots of these assumptions, helps me cut my development time in half!