Sys::OutPut, release 2.1, is a Perl 5 module which defines the subroutines "out", "put", "err", "talk", and "debug", all of which perform printf-formatting of their arguments to either STDOUT or STDERR, as appropriate, with or without trailing newlines, and possibly depending upon the $quiet or $debug variables. Basically, I don't like to write "printf STDERR" or "printf STDOUT", so these little routines do it for me. And, they take care of ensuring that newlines are output when appropriate. You would be surprised how much easier writing Perl scripts is when you use these routines. The "debug" routine is particularly useful when you can code like this: next if debug "I got this far." The module has embedded POD text with which man or HTML pages can be created. For detailed usage information, you can do: pod2man OutPut.pm | nroff -man The module is accompanied with a Makefile.PL, this README, a test program (test.pl), a reference test output file, and the GNU License, under which this software is freely available. Follow these steps to install: gunzip Sys-OutPut-2.1.tar.gz tar xvf Sys-OutPut-2.1.tar cd Sys-OutPut-2.1 perl Makefile.PL make make test && make install The "make install" will only succeed if you have the correct permissions. The archives are available at your nearest CPAN site, which you can find from http://www.perl.org/CPAN/. Contributions or improvements are welcome. ___________________________________________________________ Alan Stebbens http://reality.sgi.com/aks