If you have no access to any kind of database (eg:MySql) you could use hash tables. Otherwise: 1.Create two hash tables A & B. Let A contain Catalog# as its key and frequency as its value. Let B contains "Catalog#|seq#" as its key and pipe delimited fields as its value (String). seq# <- The frequency (incremented value) in hash "A" . 2. When a user enters the range of catalog#s: You may use the sorted list of key values from hash "A" to get all unique catalog#s and its corresponding frequency. And utilize a small loop to fetch all the records user wanted from hash "B". (Note: It may take time to load your data into hash table.) Uma. (umasuga@home.com)