BACKGROUND

I wam trying to build a drop down menu that will be filled by a column from a flat file that i have. i have done this b efore with DBI/datebases etc but this is different because i have to do this without sql.

PROBLEM

The file format looks something like this: 

ID0!NAME0!CLASS0!INSTRUCTOR0
ID1!NAME1!CLASS1!INSTRUCTOR1
ID2!NAME2!CLASS2!INSTRUCTOR2
ID3!NAME3!CLASS3!INSTRUCTOR3
ID4!NAME4!CLASS4!INSTRUCTOR4
ID5!NAME5!CLASS5!INSTRUCTOR5

[download]

now some column items may be repeated, example "INSTRUCTOR2 can be present in more than one row.
so i guess i have to sort the data first and drop repeated options from a column.
Example: 
..INSTRUCTOR0
..INSTRUCTOR1
..INSTRUCTOR2
..INSTRUCTOR2
..INSTRUCTOR3
..INSTRUCTOR3
..INSTRUCTOR4
..INSTRUCTOR5
..INSTRUCTOR5
..INSTRUCTOR5
..INSTRUCTOR5

[download]

can become:
..INSTRUCTOR0
..INSTRUCTOR1
..INSTRUCTOR2
..INSTRUCTOR3
..INSTRUCTOR4
..INSTRUCTOR5

[download]
I know this is very basic stuff but i cant seem to figure out how to extract DISTINCT fields from a flat file column. Thank you!

In reply to building Drop down menu - from a flat file by data67

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