Hi all!!

After experiencing great helpfulness the last time I posted a problem at this site, I once again turn to the forum for expert help.

The problem:

I have a file.dat containing x, y, and z coordinates, like:

x y z
1 1 4
1 2 3
1 3 9

2 1 7
2 2 2
2 3 8

3 1 3
3 2 5
3 3 7

.....and so on.

I would like to extract the maximum z value with its respective x value from each data block and insert these values into a filenew.dat:

Example:

file.dat

1 1 9 #extract this
1 2 3
1 3 2

2 1 7
2 2 2
2 3 8 #extract this

3 1 3
3 2 7 #extract this
3 3 5

and insert into....

filenew.dat
1 9
2 8
3 7


Already greatful for previous assistance, I humbly ask:
Could anybody help me with this?

Regards
bjorb

maybe you should try to use awk ? i'm sorry , i haven't programmed using awk for a long time but this is a little tutorial about awk.

Thanks for the link.
But to be honest I'm not to familiar with awk myself.
Is there a way to pick a max value from a field using awk?

Could grep be used?

bjorb