Thanks a lot for the reply. In fact, I tested the timeout with the code you posted (wich is an alternate way to call the Spreadsheet::ParseExcel module), and the timeout worked just perfect. I then tested my old code with another big excel file and, surprise, it worked too.

So, as far as I want to prevent big files parsing, the timeout works. But I still can't have the timeout to work with a specific corrupted xls file I have here.

I don't know what the heck the user invented on this one (God, how I love the users! ..lghs) but, when I save it as '.txt tab delimited', I see many of those black squares in between the text.

They're not located on the end of the line, so they're not '\n's. I checked the excel file, and guess what they are: they are those big dashes, the ones that windows converts this one '-' into, as you type. You know?

If I try to paste it here, it pastes as '-', but they are in fact something like '--'. I mean, it's a wide dash. (what's the name of it?)

I've seen this problem happening also with those english quotes, the ones that have some angle to the right and to the left, according to if they are opening or closing quotes.

Does anyone know how to threat these peculiar MS characters, in order they don't cause these parsing problems on Perl?

How do I replace them? They are \what?

Thanks a lot

André