Oddly enough, further examination of the file showed that there was one huge incomplete line after what I posted (vi didn't like showing it but emacs did). I was able to read from the file and get correct output. Why is it inserting that text from the module, though? Is that intended behavior? I actually created my reader script by copying the writer, and forgot to change the GDBM_NEWDB the first time... when I examined that produced file, it had the entire text of the reader script in it. Oh well... I suppose all's well that's read well.