Hi Folks, [I sent this post this morning but it doesn't look like made it. So I'm resending it!] I've been struggling with this for a couple of hours this morning and it seems like I'll need some help from the pros. I have a long file consisting of document numbers. I would like to insert sequentially a number into records saved in another file I am data munging through a while loop. The problem I am faced with is how to instruct the code to insert a single array element and remember where it left off. A flag of some sort. For instance, during the first run, it'll get no 000030004 and insert it in record A, then no 000030067 for record B, etc. I believe I have to use splice (splice @array (0,1)) to achieve this; or do I? My code inserts all the record numbers during the while loop. I am including a simplified version of my code here for your review. The defective code is commented. Your help is very much appreciated. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> use strict; use Text::Wrap; my @doc_num= qw (000030004 000030067 000030068 000030079 000030148 000030294 000030319 000030454 000031100 000031125 000031131 000031140 000031410); $doc_num_ref = \@doc_num; my($author,$title,$publisher,$notes,$abstract)=split /\|/,$_; open (IN,"<l:/intext.txt") or warn "Cannot find specified file: $!\n"; open (OUT,">c:/outtxt.txt") or warn "Cannot create specified file: $!\n"; select (OUT); while (<IN>){ print "*** DOCUMENT BOUNDARY ***\n"; #&doc_num; if ($author =~ (/.$/)){ &multi_authors; } if ($title =~ (/.$/)){ print "..TI:\n",wrap(" ","","$title"),"\n"; } if ($publisher =~ (/.$/)){ print "..PU:\n",wrap(" ","","$publisher"),"\n"; } if ($notes =~ (/.$/)){ print "..NT:\n",wrap(" ","","$notes"),"\n"; } if ($abstract =~ (/.$/)){ print "..ABST:\n",wrap(" ","","$abstract"); } } close (IN); close (OUT); sub multi_authors{ $author =~ s/;\s+/;/mg; @authors = split /;/,$author; foreach $author(@authors){ print "..AU:\n",wrap(" ","","$author"),"\n"; } } #sub doc_num{ #foreach $doc_num (@$doc_num) { # print "..Document-Number: $doc_num\n"; #} #} __END__ _______________________________________________________ The American Occupational Therapy Foundation (AOTF) Creating Opportunities through Research and Education http://www.aotf.org 301.652.2682 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]