Well, for those of you watching at home. I have tried to figure out what Panda is getting on the other side of the code divide. So I added printf statements to print out the stuff I was sending in. Come to find out, if I pass a packed scalar with the "P" template, printf freaks out and causes an access violation trying to print out what I sent in. If I try to send in straight strings, it also causes an access violation. I have tried many other cominations of pack templates. Some just return (null) when printed out. Others cause access violations. I believe that I am completely missing some point here but I do not know what it is. *sigh* My search for an answer continues