But the way I read this is that it should be done as my $regex = /^foo/m; if ( $str =~ /$regex ) instead of my $regex = /^foo/; if ( $str =~ /$regex/m ) which is how I've always done it. That could be a BIG incompatibility. It broke ack. xoxo, Andy -- Andy Lester => andy at petdance.com => www.petdance.com => AIM:petdance