$var =~ tr!\\!/! didn't work - this just split out the \ slashes. the problem seems to be that the forward slashes in the variable are not interpreted as such so c:\dir would not work whereas we know c:\\dir would be interpreted as c:\dir and would work. i think i need to find a way of returning the path from my html form with \\ instead of \ each time. i wonder if cgi.pm has an ability to convert paths?