1. How to store routines in separate files:

#file shared1.pm:
use strict;
sub xxx1 ($\%\@@) # define xxx1 with prototype
{ blah blah;
  return ...;
} # end sub xxx1

use Exporter(); @ISA=qw(Exporter);
@EXPORT = qw(xxx1);   # exports name xxx1
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Now, in your main.pl program file, you may call subroutine defined in shared1.pm above:

use strict;
use shared1;  # 'include' shared code

...
# call sub defined in shared1.pm
my $result = xxx1($arg1, %arg2, @arg3, $optarg1, $optarg2);
...
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2. In project this huge, I advise to use not only 'use strict' everywhere, you may want to learn how to do 'prototypes' as well. It will help you to detect (some) errors when wrong numbers or types of parameters are passed to subroutine. While on that, you can also learn to pass hashes as references. Good luck on your long jourmey! PMAS