dallen16++ for your question. Only a little though about your's".. specify the directory path and filename in a portable manner": in my little experience (no CPAN contribution, till now) about path portability i saw that Perl works very well in Win32 OSs with linux styled paths. So if you need to interpolate too in the path, instead of having to "c:\\a_lot_\\of\\$backslashes" you can safely use / and you'll "c:/fewer/$keystrokes" (pronounce c:/ like 'see')

L*