That's a pretty cute trick. Sorta reminds me of "Things are not what they seem like.".

The key here is that the second assignment doesn't really end until the 6th line from the top. So the string 'cut' is assigned to $,.

For the record: I did not guess the output before I ran the script. :-)

Good stuff.

Zenon Zabinski | zdog | zdog@perlmonk.org