Finally came up with the first stab at antchrist: package antchrist; use Filter::Util::Call; sub import { filter_add([]); } sub filter { my $status = filter_read(); s/(\S+)\s*\?\?=\s*(.*\S)\s*;/defined($1) or ($1 = $2);/; 1 while s/(\S+)\s*\?\?\s*(.*\S);/defined($1) ? $1 : $2;/; $status; } 1; ==== Want to unsubscribe from Fun With Perl? Well, if you insist... ==== Send email to <fwp-request@technofile.org> with message _body_ ==== unsubscribe