This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------ extPart_000_0088_01C19702.70A9F5C0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset so-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable this seems to work: a,b = 5,0 x = a/b rescue print "Divide by zero!\n" but this doesn't require 'blahblah' rescue print "No such file!\n" tried it with parentheses etc...i can do it the normal way, just wondering what i was doing wrong this way thanks! Jack ------ extPart_000_0088_01C19702.70A9F5C0 Content-Type: text/html; charset so-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 5.50.4207.2601" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>this seems to work:</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>a,b = 5,0</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>x = a/b rescue print "Divide by zero!\n"</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>but this doesn't</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>require 'blahblah' rescue print "No such file!\n"</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>tried it with parentheses etc...i can do it the normal way, just wondering what i was doing wrong this way</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>thanks!</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Jack</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML> ------ extPart_000_0088_01C19702.70A9F5C0--