Yes,

you definitely need to organise your data in a different way, so that it will be easier for you to retrieve the data afterwards.

DK mentioned using another delimiter than a space, which is the way to go. I wouldn't go with a . though, since some people's names might have a dot in it, like John F. Kennedy or something.

Instead use a delimiter which is highly unlikely to be in the data, such as $chr(230) = æ, or perhaps $chr(255) = ÿ, or use a line feed $lf ($chr(10), which can't be in a string anyway.

Suppose we use æ, then it is very easy to get parts from the data. We'd do:

//tokenize 230 <yourdata> | echo -a $1 = name * $2 = status * $3 = data

You get the picture.

Greets

EDIT: You made a new reply when I was previewing mine...seems you can't re-organise your data. Let's see what I can do for you then.

Last edited by FiberOPtics; 14/11/04 12:14 AM.