On Aug 6, 2008, at 5:08 PM, Dan Linder wrote: > sub retrieve_fields { > my ( $file )=@_; > my %fields; > open(FILE, $file) > { > local $/; > eval <FILE>; > } > return %fields; > } Have you tried this instead? sub retrieve_fields { my ( $file )=@_; my $fields; open(FILE, $file) { local $/; eval <FILE>; } return $fields; } HTH, j