On 2011-05-16, no.top.post / gmail.com wrote: > awk &stuff can "give me the the Nth element", > but, without writing your own search-loop, > what can "give me the index of the 'element' > which is <elementValue>" ? > > I think it's called 'reverse indexing' ? Do you want 'grep -n'? If not, please be more specific. -- Chris F.A. Johnson, <http://cfajohnson.com> Author: Pro Bash Programming: Scripting the GNU/Linux Shell (2009, Apress) Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)