> I am now enlightened as to the usefulness of 'r+', as it starts the > read fp at the begining of the file. Both 'r+' and 'w+' let you write anywhere, whereas 'a+' is supposed to make all writes EOF appends. 'r+' (and 'r') requires an existing file while 'w+' (like 'w') will open a new file or truncate an existing file. Terry J. Reedy