In article <[log in to unmask]>, [log in to unmask] says... Thanks for the replies. I think I get it now. I was wondering how it'd cope with things like - !job ... !sort i infile o outfile etc. If it ignores the first character all the time then the input for the SORT command would be lost but I see you can only use either - 1) The character specified on the STREAM command 2) The first character of the first record 3) Colon (even though the manual tells you not to!) Cheers Peter -- http://www.beluga.freeserve.co.uk * To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, * * etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *