thanks for he help!, it's an enormous thing to see the data structure by using dump

yes, the contact was a means to learn a new trick(althought, all in perl right now is a new trick to me) I got that " " made the trick work where I didn't do that. although, I am wondering with a question,

what is the difference between these:as far as data goes.any forseeable issues

colunm 3 will have the "$1num $num2" $hash{$ita}= "$num1 $num2";

vs col3 has $num1

if (defined $num1){$hash{$ita}3=$num1} and

column4 has now $num2

if (defined $num2){$hash{$ita}4=$num2}

yes, I think concat is not what I want now that I know this and I have changed the code myself now too

true, the comma is cosmetic and I was looking for an exercise in manipulating printing to learn a new technique. I am sure I will get A LOT more practice on print the way I want stuff all summer