Appreciate the help offered by all the members of this forum. This is the 1st time i have used this forum, and am very impressed with the reponse to my question. The server i am using is unix I have done some more testing, and the main character i seem to have a problem with is \ or /, where it seems to indicate a change in directory in the output file name I will use this the code offered by jhourcle to get around the problem. Also , thanks to all the other members who have given advice. Once again, really appreciate the help regards ,kennedymr2