note chas <c>"($sub1, $sub2, $sub3) = split (/\_/, @array,3); $sub3 = sort { $b <=> $a } $sub3;"</c><br> It isn't clear to me what your array is exactly, but in any case, as has been remarked already, $sub3 will be a single string, and sorting it will have no effect. It isn't clear to me what you want to do or I would have offered more suggestions.<br> chas<br> (Update: Actually, what I said is misleading. I *think* the first line of the code above will take @array in scalar context giving the number of elements, and then $sub1 will be this value; $sub2 and $sub3 will be empty. The sorting will do nothing useful, of course. So perhaps you should just ignore my reply above and read the other replies...) 487299 487314