Point taken about problem statements ww. Whatever anyone else gets out of it I for one have learnt a geansaí load from this one thread. I would never have thought of using sprintf, and as for tieing a scalar... and I can already see other places where these can be used.

-- geansaí is the Irish word for jumper, as in "I got a geansaí load of apples from that orchard" - as many apples as you can carry tucked into your jumper. Funnily enough, the Jamaican word "gansy" has exactly the same meaning.