hi joelba, i have a 12 byte key and a 15 byte value, that i am trying to store in a %hash variable. the key is alphanumeric, the value is numeric. i think i might have hit some kinda memory limit. hard to imagine though i am using a box with 16gb virutal memory size and 3gb ram. so shudnt have had any issues but looks like it does. its a dec alpha box. been on other issues am now back to tackling this issue.. any wisdom will be gladly accepted..thanks in advance