This is a problem that has caused gripes since the begining of online forums/mailinglists/newsgroups/irc channels. Most of these newbies haven't learned how to use the documentation available to them, or they probably would not be asking such questions. Learning to use perl's documentation to me is a core competency for newbies to learn in their journey to learn the language. Respoding to the newbies question with an example of hey super search would have given you this... or perldoc some function would have had an example of this, usually will get a newbie to learn to lean on included documentation. Until they get to that point, there will always be a certain number of questions that will make the oldtimers think "how don't they know that?' and the newbie themselves will review these posts a few month's later and say "wow, I can't believe I didn't know that."

Scott "have been flamed numerous times to RTFM" stef

"The social dynamics of the net are a direct consequence of the fact that nobody has yet developed a Remote Strangulation Protocol." -- Larry Wall