thanks for your reply, it was interesting having a look at your solution.

my processor works with the examples I gave and more complex code. within a recursive structure where all the brackets are of the same bracket type my system allows virtually unlimited recursion, however when mixtures of brackets are used, it does as you pointed out have a limitation.

my solution to this, was to make the insertfile routine restart the parser, and thus through multiple files you can indefinitely continue to use the 3 bracket structure. of course with anything very complicated this would become cumbersome having lots of sub files to deal with

as a result i tend to try and be as abstract as possible within the xml-esque control file, and have the plugins do the donkey work. this also leaves the top control file being very close to an english description of what the plugins are doing below, such as <trylogin> or <uploadfile>. Whilst the structure allows for a lot of effects, it wasnt intended to be a scripting language of its own :)