Marshall has provided an excellent solution (Re: Not getting proper output in array write) to your current problem. If this is what you really want, read no further. However, I hope that you, as a user of this forum, want help in learning to write such code yourself. You do not appear to understand the differences among the perl terms 'list', 'array', and 'hash'. It would help if you study the Perl documentation at Perl variable types. Post specific questions if you still need help.