Ok , thanks for the input.. but the thing is i have a file for each half hour interval, with upto 10 seperate readings..

I have put this ugly looking thing together.. which does seem to work..

use strict;

my $input = "quotes.txt"; 

my ($quote,$time);
my $actualquote;
my $actualtime;

my $hour;
my $minute;
my $second;

my $picksecond;

open(DATAFILE, "$input") || die("Can't open $input:!\n");

$picksecond =1;
while (<DATAFILE>) {
       
        chomp $_;
        ($quote,$time) = split(",", $_);
        
    ($hour,$minute,$second) = split(":",$time);
    
    if ($second==0) 
        {$actualtime=$time; $actualquote=$quote;$picksecond=99;}

        if ($second>$picksecond)
        {$picksecond=$second;$actualtime=$time; $actualquote=$quote;}

    print "$quote\t$time\t$second\n";
    

}
print "$picksecond\t$actualtime\t$actualquote\n";
[download]

Does anyone care to comment on my code..??

i have another outstanding issue..

when i have a messed up time field e.g 17:30:07fg

how do i get the split command to ignore any characters after the 2 seconds digit? thanks.