@Marshall - thanks for all your help. I just noticed the code you posted earlier from a reply. Seeing the results using dumper was neat. That's exactly what I needed was the breakdown of value/pair data for each set. I am looking now at the code you provided for sorting and see how I can fit that in with your other example. I'd like to get this working and use it as a reference for me of good code and seeing another way of writing it helps me learn :-) My end result would be a delimited file. I'll try it out and see if i can string it together. thanks!

This is the data string I was constructing with my script. I know its screwy with the hashing and all...

1-Server=server1.domain.com;2-Logdate=Thu Aug 19 2010;3-BackupSet=back
+up.set1_lvm;4-StartTime=06:00:03;5-Duration=00:56:53;6-Size=72.04 GB;
+7-Status=Succeeded;
1-Server=server1.domain.com;2-Logdate=Thu Aug 19 2010;3-BackupSet=back
+up.set2_lvm;4-StartTime=00:00:04;5-Duration=01:56:35;6-Size=187.24 GB
+;7-Status=Succeeded;
1-Server=server1.domain.com;2-Logdate=Thu Aug 19 2010;3-BackupSet=back
+up.set3_lvm;4-StartTime=23:00:05;8-Status=Unsuccessful;
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