That is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks! Could I ask you for another favour, since I am not a programmer? The file that I need to parse holds multiple lines with a record-id followed by 4 spaces followed by the string with inventorynumbers. For example: 123 ph1-3;25;t3 234 45;67-69 345 t200 What I need to end up with is a file that looks like this: 123 ph1 123 ph2 123 ph3 123 25 123 t3 234 45 234 67 234 68 234 69 345 t200 So, I would like to know is how to write a Perl script that reads a file line by line, breaks down each line in record-id followed by inventorynumber for each inventory number in the range given for that record-id and does that for each record-id. I take it that I have to use an array for that, and voila, I am already out of my depth. If you think I am too cheeky, just say so. Eventually I will figure out how to read the contents of a file and how to use arrays. It is just that I amm pressed for time. I would never have figured out how to use Perl to break-down ranges though : )

In reply to Re^2: break-down ranges by goorgi01
in thread break-down ranges by Anonymous Monk

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