[Repost - I think the original was dropped] Bryn, There is no need to keep track of the keys. My GNU AWK will let me use: { data[$1] = $2 } END { for (val in data) print val "," data } This does the same thing I think... Ian -- Ian Hill I.A.Hill at cs.cf.ac.uk Humans are communications junkies. We just can't get enough. -- Alan Kay