> perl -ne 'print if ($B or !/\S/ and $B++ )' < a mail message and if you s/\$B/$b/g it will even run under use strict :-) perl -Mstrict -ne 'print if ($b or !/\S/ and $b++ )' < a mail message Grant ==== Want to unsubscribe from Fun With Perl? Well, if you insist... ==== Send email to <fwp-request@technofile.org> with message _body_ ==== unsubscribe