Locians, I want to mention a book I bought the other day. Most references to XML deal with "Web applications" for the language. Of course, Loci at its core has nothing to do with the Web. But I came across this book that addresses the use of SGML (XML's parent) for non-Web software development: McGrath, Sean PARSEME.1ST Prentice Hall PTR, 1998 ISBN 0-13-488967-3 For those who are interested in the use of XML in this project, you may want to check your library for it. There are many useful examples (I think), and some are even in Python. Jeff -- J.W. Bizzaro Phone: 617-552-3905 Boston College mailto:bizzaro at bc.edu Department of Chemistry http://www.uml.edu/Dept/Chem/Bizzaro/ --