well im not entering anything on the command line. when i run the script i just want it to print off the PID # in the first loop and then recycle those numbers to the second loop and then kill the process. so $5 is definetley not correct. I would think it would be $$ too for the PID but it kills the 2nd loop completely. i want to see the 2nd loop terminating the process in the loop and then repeat the PID #.