Thanks for the heads up on the maxlength, any help on the formatting. I have seen references to the maskededit.control, string.format and cannot seem to find an easy way to display format, without parseing the string, nor create an input mask. All help appreciated. JohnR

Thanks for the response. When I used the ddl and added items to the collection in the properties page I had no problems which only added to the confusion in trying to bring a value out of the ds and display the corresponding row in the ddl. So that I understand.... When I was using the findbyvalue or findbytext...I was 'probably' finding...but not setting the selectedindex to the indexof the 'found' row ? And I will presume that a variable of string, or long, can be inserted as the object of findbytext, or findbyvalue ? I will try it later this afternoon...and when it works, even though I am a non smoker, you would have my vote for KING!