It is amazing. When you look at code over and over, quite often the most obvious mistake is missed. Seeing my question online alog with your answer forced me to look at it again.

Lock tables support read will not work if one wants to write. I saw it as, lock the table read access to all but me... oh well... I still need to read over the exclusive mode... mysql.com is nto the best... I think I need a mysql for dummies book. Anyhows thanks for the help.

I know some of you think I am pushing it by aasking a mysql question, but hey, I did not know whether the problem was with how I was phrasing the mysql code in perl, or with my mysql sql statements... Remember, there is no such thing as a dumb question, just dumn users--sorry.