Hello Monks, Using Activestate perl, Apache 2and CGI package. I'm returning variable values from web page form user input. eg - $myvariable = $q->param( "myinput" ); I then test for a null value with eg - if ($myvariable eq ""){ #ie if user didnt fill in field exit; #don't try to work on a null value } Although my scripts work ok I'm filling up my apache error log with drivel like - "...Use of uninitialized value in string eq at ..." It seems that an uninitialised variable is not the same as a null variable. How do I test for an uninitialised variable? I've hunted through quite a lot of big fat perl books to no avail. This seems like an embarrassingly dumb question, sorry. Masters, you are my only hope .... Thanks