Tim Hammerquist <tim / vegeta.ath.cx> writes: > Yes, he's talking about Perl. However, Ruby's behavior mimics > Perl's, at least insofar as "nothing changes if nothing matches". Actually, Ruby unsets $1 on failure: irbsh(main):005:0> /(a)/ =~ "cat" 1 irbsh(main):006:0> $1 "a" irbsh(main):007:0> /(a)/ =~ "dog" nil irbsh(main):008:0> $1 nil I guess this means Merlyn would be happier with Ruby! Cheers Dave