( Please put code in ... tags. ) I have done that now. ( Please don't lie by saying your code outputs one thing when it doesn't even compile. Post the code you actually ran. ) Sir/madam..."Lie" is a pretty strong accusation! I agree I was missing ";" at the end of  @a = split if ($_ ne "==.*") which was causing the abort but that wasn't intentional. You may see that this was my first post and I came here thinking I would get some good advise; I most certainly do not need someone calling me names!