Thanks everybody .. moving the $currentpos update out of the if fixed it beautifully.

To answer one question, the record length is always 4 chars in length and as for the other suggestions they're very much appreciated but I've only been writing perl for a couple of days so my scripts are going to be a little amateurish at this stage - does the job though :)

Cheers!

In reply to Re^2: Can someone tell me why this hangs?? by monty77
in thread Can someone tell me why this hangs?? by monty77

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