Hello, I am using strict, and I am also using some references. My code has the following declared at the top of my code. use CGI qw/:standard/; use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser); use IO::Socket; use strict; use vars qw($filename $mediabankdir $message @squawk %byName $productName); ... later on I have a function that returns an array reference and I am using it like this: my $refArray = &ref_query($querystring,$fieldlist,"$mediabankdir/sysdbase/dbmeta.dbf",'SYST EM','1'); foreach my $hit (@{$refArray}) { my @lines = split /\n/, $hit; But I am getting a error that says the following: SOFTWARE ERROR: Can't use string ("-1" as an ARRAY ref while "strict refs" in use at d:\iInetpub\wwwroot ....yada ). How do I get around the strict problems and references? Thanks, Scott Purcell _______________________________________________ Perl-Win32-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://listserv.ActiveState.com/mailman/listinfo/perl-win32-users