That´s what I needed. Thanks! Spencer Graves wrote: > What sort of trouble are you having? I just got the following from R > 1.8.0: > > "a"<"b" > [1] TRUE > > "a">"b" > [1] FALSE > > "ab"<"a" > [1] FALSE > > "ab">"a" > [1] TRUE > > hope this helps. spencer graves > >