Thanks for taking the time with that reply bart. Problem is (which I hate) the "|-" syntax isn't supported on Win32 systems. A real pain in the ar$3. I'm not sure how a similar structure/syntax is achieved in Win32. Anyone?

Coroutines sounds VERY interesting and I'd be interested in reading more into that, although at present it sounds like its still in the experimental stage (is that true?) and I'd rather stick with a solution that is (eh hem..) "standard" perl.

Piping is probable although implementation into a module isn't so easy to achieve. Infact, based on the responses in this discussion nah it be too difficult or impossible. Hence your solution shows me an example of piping, which I can do, but not how to implement this into my problem. In this case the context of the problem puts a spin on the ability of piping out of its normal context, hence my post to the group. In general the whole piping solution to me doesn't seem "intuitively simple" if you get my meaning.

Thanks also for all the links at the bottom. I'm interested to have a look through some of the code examples suggested. So thanks. ++