This works: for FILE in `find /etc -type f`; do if [ -r "$FILE" ]; then FILEN=`basename $FILE` ALLIN=`cat $FILE | wc -l` NOCOMM=`sed "/^#/d; /^$/d" $FILE | wc -l` printf "%s:\t%d\t%d\n" $FILEN $ALLIN $NOCOMM fi done Much simpler than perl. :) Cheers, -- Konstantin Riabitsev <icon@linux.duke.edu> Linux@DUKE