I cannot explain why it gives different results when I try the awk, sed, tr command combination with the same input. (aondufd1)psoftfs:/aon/dev/psoft/FSTST88/autosys>echo ${MailFile} + echo mfint003pr.in1* mfint003pr.in1* (aondufd1)psoftfs:/aon/dev/psoft/FSTST88/autosys/scripts>echo ${MailFile} | awk -F. '{ print $1 "." }' | sed 's/.*\(...\)\..*/\1/' | tr [A-Z] [a-z] | tr -d [0-9] + echo mfint003pr.in1* + awk -F. { print $1 "." } + sed s/.*\(...\)\..*/\1/ + tr -d 1 + tr [A-Z] a 3pr (aondufd1)psoftfs:/aon/dev/psoft/FSTST88/autosys/scripts>cd ../parm + cd ../parm (aondufd1)psoftfs:/aon/dev/psoft/FSTST88/autosys/parm>echo ${MailFile} | awk -F. '{ print $1 "." }' | sed 's/.*\(...\)\..*/\1/' | tr [A-Z] [a-z] | tr -d [0-9] + echo mfint003pr.in1* + awk -F. { print $1 "." } + sed s/.*\(...\)\..*/\1/ + tr -d [0-9] + tr [A-Z] [a-z] pr One big question mark in my head right now. Could someone please help. Thanks. There were no additional profiles loaded when changing directories. just doing the cd command. The output should be 3pr. That would be the correct one, right?