i get my pathalias input from this script: for i in $*; do case $i in *.Z) echo "file {`expr $i : '\(.*\).Z'`} zcat $i ;; *) echo "file {$i}" cat $i ;; esac echo "private {}" done | pathalias ... the "file {}" syntax is new; if you aren't ftp-ing pathalias regularly, you'll get a syntax error. peter