note johngg You could try installing the Compress::Zlib module and use that to read the log file directly.<p> <code> use strict; use warnings; use Compress::Zlib; # Set up what we want to match. # our $reg1 = "Joe Sinclair"; our $reg2 = "Bill Halburg"; our $rxNames = qr{(?:$reg1|$reg2)} # Open compressed log file. # our $logFile = "file.gz"; our $gzInput = gzopen($logFile, "rb") or die "gzopen: $gzerrno\n"; # Read line by line into $_ counting bytes read. # our $bytesRead; while($bytesRead = $gzInput->gzreadline($_)) { # Print if it matches. # print if /$rxNames/; } # Check that we have read to the end. Close # file. # die "Incomplete read: $gzerrno\n" unless $gzerrno == Z_STREAM_END; $gzInput->close(); </code><p> I have not tested this but I have adapted it from a script doing somthing similar.<p>Cheers,<p>JohnGG 538316 538316