hmmmm...... Some of the tools you'll need, as plaid has pointed out, are a database. It sounds like the site your thinking of will probably grow fairly large. So I would put some thought into the database software. mSQL or MySQL are probably the most "standard" choices for perl programmers. There are perl moduals for both at CPAN. The next bit that i would like to give you in addition to supporting plaid is to make sure that you benchmark everything. It is arguable that benchmarking isn't a must for a non commerical site but it is definately a must for all commercial sites. You can find, um the last i looked someone correct me if im wrong, two benchmarking moduales at CPAN the more standard (ie. its documented in the nutshell book) is Benchmark.pm. Just because there is more than one way to do it, doesnt mean that all ways are equal. I would suggest the Advanced Perl Programming book from O'Reilly. For a fuller understanding of data structures in Perl, and OO Perl programming, also see the perltoot in the standard perl documentation. UM... and regular expressions will be handy too. Good luck

lm little_mistress@mainhall.com