Thanks for the reply. I had indeed fallen into the 'fear of posting' trap as you say. The quote from Voltaire in one of my previous replies sums up why I feared to post:

The best is the enemy of the good.

I wanted to have the 'best' response and since I did not I refrained from posting what might have been a good response. But the thing about Perl is, and this is what many of us here love about Perl I think, there is rarely one single 'best' solution (as you say - TMTOWTDI).

This is something I deal with in my code as well, worrying too much about making something 'perfect' when my time would be better spent on other things.

awkmonk++