>Is there a similar operator in Perl for ${variable##pattern} as there is in korn shell.
As far as I can tell, no. However, from http://wwwcgi.rdg.ac.uk:8081/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/wsi14/poplog/man/1/ksh : ${parameter##word} Remove Largest Prefix Pattern. The word will be expanded to produce a pattern. The parameter expansion then will result in parameter, with the largest portion of the prefix matched by the pattern deleted. So $variable =~ s/^(pattern){1}//g; should be close in effect to the ksh $variable = ${variable##pattern}; (see http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html) In any case, it apears that ksh offers a limited capability of substring processing through 4 varieties of parameter expansion ( (prefix,suffix) by (smallest,largest) ). The ksh documentation says "pattern matching notation (see patmat), rather than regular expression notation, will be used to evaluate the patterns" but I can't find any relevant documentation of "patmat" and doubt if it covers more than a small part of the functionality provided by perl's regular expression facility. -tristram -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]