note eyepopslikeamosquito <P> The problem is that the <C>chr(4)</C> inside your <C>/chr(4)/</C> regex is not being interpreted as a function call; rather it is being interpreted literally, with the parens in <C>chr(4)</C> being interpreted as regex metacharacters to capture the 4 in a matching <C>chr4</C>, for example! </P> <P> There are a number of ways to fix this, for example: <CODE> @LineDetails = split /\04/, $line; # ... or @LineDetails = split chr(4), $line; </CODE> </P> 1006696 1006696