I agree that it looks like a stupid post. Well, ok, it is a stupid post. holli had already explained that Perl arrays are magical beasts. I figured the OP might be trying to ask for something like a dynamically allocated nameless piece of memory. While an anonymous array is not exactly that, since it is at least born nameless, it may better give the impression of fitting the mallocy world view of a newbie (such as myself). I hope to be back from my pilgrimage in time for the baptism.