Hello -- See Gotoken's response. But also.... On Tue, 2 Jan 2001, Robert Gustavsson wrote: > str = gets > break if not str > str.chop! That doesn't do what I think you think it does. Empty strings (let alone ones with newlines in them :-) are not false in Ruby. Try this: str = gets.chomp break if str.empty? David -- David Alan Black home: dblack / candle.superlink.net work: blackdav / shu.edu Web: http://pirate.shu.edu/~blackdav