Hi Gurus, I have 2 files--1.txt & 2.txt both have lots of filenames. Ex:1.txt has (a.txt b.txt c.txt,...as separate lines) 2.txt has (d.txt,f.txt,... as separate lines). Both won't have same names. I need to write a ksh script where using a loop, I want to read the first line of first file and process it (may be write to another file 3.txt).After the first line of first file, I should read first line of second file and process(may be add to 3.txt).Then read second line of first file and process(add to 3.txt) and then second line of second file,...and go on.when data of one file is over, then keep on adding the second file data only or viceversa.How can I loop this?Please let me know. I started with only looping of file 1 alone as follows: for i in `cat 1.txt`;do echo $i >> 3.txt done Any thoughts? Thanks, Poornima

Try this: #!/usr/bin/ksh x=1 en=$(cat 1.txt|wc -l) until [[ $x -gt $en ]];do head -$x 1.txt|tail -1 head -$x 2.txt|tail -1 x=$(($x+1)) done