<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV>Hi folks,</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I still don't get it (quite).</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>The story so far...</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I have split my rainfall record, and the right-most scalar is $rain.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I now want to make sure that $rain holds a numeric value, without any whitespace, newlines or other nasties.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>If I try</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier New">$rain = ($rain =~ m|\d+\.?\d*|);</FONT></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>It returns 1, which, presumably, is the number of times it gets a match.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>What's the right syntax for saying 'make $rain contain the numeric values in $rain"?</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lucida Grande; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lucida Grande; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lucida Grande; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV>Regards,</DIV><DIV>Martin</DIV><DIV>Visit my website...</DIV><DIV><A href="http://web.mac.com/martin_jacobs1"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; ">http://web.mac.com/martin_jacobs1 </SPAN></A></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>