or die "..." is not "large error handling" and does not make your code run any slower. I suppose you could argue that it will make your code take a few milliseconds longer to compile. If you eventually compile it enough times to make up for the time you've now spent trying to track down this problem, especially when you consider how much you get paid per hour vs. how much your computer costs per hour, then let us know. We'll all be very surprised. (:

Well, I seemed to have fixed the problem... Apparently, what converter said was right. The string literal 'USERS' was clobbering the open command. Go figure... In any case, I learned a valuable lesson: Write error handlers at all times!!! Also, if at all possible, make them good ones... ^_^. Necos