my unicode database compression project has resulted in its first patch: https://sourceforge.net/patch/index.php?func=3Ddetailpatch&patch_id=3D100= 899&group_id=3D5470 this patch replaces "ucnhash" (sorry bill!) with a new module called "uninames". on my windows box, the new module is about 1/3 of the old one (about 160k). YMMV, as usual. </F>