actually one record at a time is fine, I don't really follow your example.. ok string contains the data, and @array is going to hold the data seperated into pairs, but why string,34; I don't understand that part, then next line is doing what, I just don't get it. I will look at fixing my data file over the weekend and read re-read perllol hopefully if i read enough it will start making some kind of sense. thanks for looking, perhaps after I have read some more this will make more sense to me.