Curtis, Cheers for that that makes alot more sense now :). Yes your are correct about the /etc/passwd file. It's all well and good to be able to issue that command from a command line, but what if I wanted to issue the exact same code but from a script?
Regards, Dan Dan, Here's a list of the command line switches used and their meaning: -F(regex) A regular expression to split on if -a is used. -a Turns on autosplit mode with -n or -p. Splits to @F -p Assumes an input loop around the script (while(<>){...}) -i Inplace edit if <> is used. (-p) -e Allows you to execute a single line of script So... not being a Unix/Linux geek, I'm not sure about the structure of /etc/passwd, but it appears that fields in this file are delimited by a colon (which -F will split on) and if the 4th field ($F[3]) is equal to 45, an asterisk will be placed at the beginning of the line (s/^/*/). Someone please follow-up if I got any of this wrong. Cheers, Curtis "Ovid" Poe ===== Senior Programmer Onsite! Technology (http://www.onsitetech.com/) "Ovid" on http://www.perlmonks.org/ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find a job, post your resume. http://careers.yahoo.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]