Thanks for all the replies to date, very helpful, I will find the person who wrote it and find out exactly how he is calling it...

I'm completely confused as to what is going on, if I use the die statement as written by tachyon it fails, and doesn't interpolate the variable $sql, but if I just die $sql it prints perfectly. The behaviour is baffling to say the least.

I'll resume the discussion on tueday after a nice long rest (bank holiday here in uk)

Thanks a lot for help up to now!