I've never tried counting but figured there'd be too many variations to make sed practical. Maybe not in terms of templates, though. Besides escape sequences you'd have to deal with underlining, such as with s/.\ch//g. -- Lee Maschmeyer lee_maschmeyer@xxxxxxxxx "Santa was a sad old man When he backed into the electric fan." --Homer & Jethro _______________________________________________ Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list