Here is what I'm doing: I'm issuing a DOS command on a Windows platform using the backtick mark (`command`) and getting output from it. That works fine. Now my problem is parsing the string that gets returned. I've tried using the preg_match and preg_match_all commands to filter the information I want, but can't seem to get them to work. I'm not sure if they are the ones I need to use. I'm attempting to use the following pattern filter with the preg_match commands: if (preg_match("/starting./", $output) == 0) { print "Error logging on to server - unable to get user list.\n"; } else { array_shift($output); array_pop($output); foreach ($output as $line) { $search_pattern = "/\s*([^\s]*)\s*AKA\s*\"([^\"]*)\"\s*IN\s*([^\^]*)\^([^\(]*).*/)"; if ( preg_match( $search_pattern, $line, $outarray, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE) > 0) { print "match found"; } else { print "Error found\n"; exit; } } } The above code was taken from a PERL script and modified for PHP. Data output as follows.. Some information has been blanked out for privacy reasons. ------- Cut here - Data Begin ----------------------------------- Operator Console (version 0.9.8) for 'XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX' starting. [UIN] AKA "[USERNAME]" IN [URL^ROOMNAME] (XXXX:XXXX:XXXX) Operator Console for 'XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX' signing off ------- Cut here - Data End ----------------------------------- The (XXXX:XXXX:XXXX) in the data above can contain alphanumeric characters. The large bit of space between the [UIN] and the AKA is actually in the real data. Any suggestions? Thanks much in advance, Jim -- PHP Windows Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php