I am completely baffled by this problem..I have a shell script. Near the start I declare a series of variables for example: TODAY="`date +%y%m%d`" LOGNAME="v$TODAY" FILEPATH="/tmp/fls" LOGA=$FILEPATH/$LOGNAME.log When I send the standard o/p to LOGA it writes to the file /tmp/fls/v031208.log as required. Later on I define some more variables (all references variables were defined with the variables above): FILENAME=`cat $NAMEFILE|grep $FILETYPE` LOGB=$FILEPATH/$FILENAME.log but now.. echo FILENAME -> v002 echo FILPATH -> /tmp/fls echo LOGB -> .log/fls/v002 It appends the .log bit to the start! I have tried all kinds of things but it just refuses to put .log at the end. What on earth is going on? Anyone, please!! James.

Ok, I've boiled the real problem down to the fact that i'm setting FILENAME using `cat $NAMEFILE|grep $FILETYPE`. If I just do: $FILENAME=v002 it works. I tried using " " around the `cat..` command, but no luck. How do I set the result of `cat..` as if I had just declard FILENAME as a string?

Sorted - I was getting bloody ^m s at the end of my lines in $NAMEFILE. bye