I sent this link to the list a couple weeks ago. I would very much like to get a comment from Jarl on Netpipes. Would any of this code be usable in the BL? Does it give you any ideas? It seems to me that we will need to re-invent much of this in the BL. Am I wrong (again)? "The netpipes package makes TCP/IP streams usable in shell scripts. It can also simplify client/server code by allowing the programmer to skip all the tedious programming bits related to sockets and concentrate on writing a filter/service." http://web.purplefrog.com/~thoth/netpipes/netpipes.html Jeff