> Basically, the ($p) puts it into a list context rather than > a plain old scalar context. What I don't understand is why my($p) =Net::Ping->new("icmp",5,64); doesn't work? I looked at the code for Net::Ping and it doesn't seem to call wantarray, so why would it care? We use the my($p) syntax all over and always "use strict" and nairy a beep?