Thanks Jonathan, You put me on the right path. I did the following and it works. 1. Created a function called func_catpid func_catpid(){ for LINE in $1 do if [ -z "$LINE" ]; then break else #Get PID from PIDFILE OLDPID=`echo $LINE | awk '{ print $1 }'` RUNNING=`ps aux | grep $OLDPID | grep -v grep | wc -l | tr -d ' '` if [ $RUNNING = 0 ]; then R=0 else (( R = $R + 1 )) echo "INSIDE R = $R" LOC=`echo $LINE | awk '{ print $2 }'` fi fi done } 2. Change the cat $PIDFILE line to... PIDFILEINFO=`cat $PIDFILE` func_catpid $PIDFILEINFO Works like a charm. Thanks again, -- Magnus Andersen Systems Administrator / Oracle DBA Walker & Associates, Inc. -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:redhat-list-request@xxxxxxxxxx?subjecthttps://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list