If this is my input: Happy Cat Male Evil Snake Female Patches Dog Male Bubbles Fish Female Harley dog Female Goldy Fish Male
What do I do so that the Name is the key and the Species and Gender together are the value? while (<>) { chomp; %chars = split(' ', $_); $chars{$char} = $ch; } This is what I have so far but of course it only will read the first two things in each line. I also found this bit of code - but it makes the gender the key and I want the name to be the key. @raw = split (" ", $_); if ($#raw == 1) { $names{$raw[1]} = $raw[0]; } else { $pn = " "; for ($i = 0; $i < $#raw; $i++) { $pn .= $raw [$i] . " "; } $names($raw[$#raw]} = $pn; } } Thanks, Terri Harrison _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]