The only reason I was using my $arg = shift(@ARGV) was because this was a quick little script to get the passing of a variable to work. I am going to now implement it into a program that uses XML::Simple and parses an XML tree and evaluates a main Bank number coming in to manipulate between one test environment and the other. this saves a ton of time for my configuration team and others. I will not be using the passing a variable in production. Your other help worked perfectly and I am now in line towards a better understanding of all of this array referencing stuff. Thanks so much for you help. Greatly appreciated. As Thorin would say "I am forever in service to you!" :)