I'm using the following (independently contrived) RE to pick out dotted-quad IPv4 addresses (like 192.168.0.1): $dqa = qr/1?\d{1,2}|2[0-4]\d|25[0-5]/; $dq = qr/(?:$dqa\.){3}$dqa/; print "matched" if $input =~ /^$dq$/; Anyone know of a simpler (or faster) pattern? cheers Joshua