#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; my %result; while() { m#(\d{2})/(\d{2})/(\d{4})#; $result{$3. $2. $1} = $_; }; my $highest = $result{(sort keys %result)[-1]}; print $highest, "\n"; exit; __DATA__ Record 0: Coll 02/14/2003 Charles S. 2862.30 00000 ISSUE WWW Record 1: Coll 03/17/2003 Peter C. 392.50 00000 ISSUE WWW Record 2: Coll 07/25/2003 John K. 10.00 00000 ISSUE CCC