note Trimbach Unless you're intent on reinventing the wheel, something like [http://search.cpan.org/~bryce/Sort-Tree-1.08/lib/Sort/Tree.pm|Sort::Tree] looks like it does what you want. <div class="pmsig"> <div class="pmsig-35324"> <p><a href="mailto:gblackburn@mac.com">Gary Blackburn</a><br> Trained Killer </div></div> 330330 330330