I seem to write this pattern in my code a lot when I'm trying to find the maximum value of something: if ($a > $b) { $b = $a; } Is there some slick Perl operator that does that cleaner? That pattern gets pretty ugly in my real code. e.g.: if ($running_simul{$type} > $stats{$type}{'max simul'}{$time}) { $stats{$type}{'max simul'}{$time} = $running_simul{$type}; } j