Thank you, that clears up the syntax for me. I will have to find a required progam that I have to write to try it out on. DJ

I read the question and all the responses. All were at a high level. I am a beginning programmer, 1 1/2 quarters to go for my degree. The first implementation makes the most sense to me. Up until now I had never seen parameters sent separatly i.e f()() they have always been f( , ). As I said, I am beginning and may be all wet in the way I read the code, but will use this post to try some new ideas. Thanks, this was interesting. dj