Hi, Dave,

(If there are a bunch of underlined numbers throughout this posting, I apologize--the numbers are supposed to be inside square brakets.)

Okay, I'm just about there. I'm starting to get this now, and things are starting to work. I have two small questions left...

1) In the line:

map { [ $, (split /:\s*/, $_->[3])[1] ] }
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Does this indicate the 4th line of the record [3] is split by a ":" and the stuff in the [1] address of the split is what ultimately ends up in the [1] position of the map? <Whew!> So if I was splitting by just plain 'ol \s+ qualifiers and the 5th position was a number I needed, I'd only change the [1] to a [4], right?

2) When I try to do a:

print for @sorted_recs;
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all I get is a bunch of ARRAY(hex#) lines printed out. It looks like the records have been sorted, but the addresses are not revealing the original contents ($_->[0], in this case). I'm not sure how to correct that.

Thanks again for your excellent guidance--I really appreciate it.

Best Regards,
-Chris

Edited by Chady -- fixed the formatting.