Think I am rediscovering the linux gotcha wheel here. http://www.linux.com/guides/abs-guide/gotchas.shtml -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Kevin Lange Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2005 3:48 PM To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: Very Simply KSH Question Unfortunately, the only way I could avoid multiple file reads of the same file was this : vFileName=3D'file.ext' for value in `cat ${vFileName}` do x=3D`echo ${value}|awk -F'|' '{ print $2 }'` y=3D`echo ${value}|awk -F'|' '{ print $3 }'` done Its unfortunate because it looks a lot like the code you had that you hated. And it does work on Linux -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l