In the "Advanced Perl book" it gives an example of using sym ref: -- process a command-line option such as "-Ddebug_level=3" and set the $debug_level variable. This is one way of doing it:
while ($arg = shift @ARGV){ if ($arg =~ /-D(\w+)=(\w+)/) { $var_name = $1; $value = $2; $$var_name = $value; # Or more compactly, $$1 = $2; } } ---- how is this any better than: while ($arg = shift @ARGV){ if ($arg =~ /-D(\w+)=(\w+)/) { $level = $2; } } --- Or am i missing the point? I never use sym refs and just wondering why i would ever want to Thanks Jim -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]