This distribution replaces the (badly named) builtin distribution. This package contains a selection of subroutines that people have expressed would be nice to have in the perl core, but the usage would not really be high enough to warrant the use of a keyword, and the size so small such that being individual extensions would be wasteful. After unpacking the distribution, to install this module type perl Makefile.PL make make test make install This distribution provides the following functions min max minstr maxstr sum first reduce blessed reftype weaken (5.005_57 and above only) isweak (5.005_57 and above only) dualvar If you do not have a C compiler then you can install a perl-only implementation, except that the following functions will not be avaliable weaken, isweak, dualvar This can be done with perl Makefile.PL -pm make make test make install Graham Barr