Timothy Nash said: [snip] >ie I only want the first line > returned. > > I thought the following would work: > > > grep 'hostname$' hosts Works for me without the quoting. [whooper@token whooper]$ cat test 10.1.1.2 hostname 10.1.1.3 hostname.old 10.1.1.4 hostname.mgt 10.1.1.5 hostname. [whooper@token whooper]$ grep hostname$ test 10.1.1.2 hostname [whooper@token whooper]$ -- William Hooper