Bon Maatin Wanda, The "//" were inherited from IBM Mainframes control languages like JCL, JES, etc ... They are like quotations marks when enclosing a string in a programming language... Why "//" or quotation marks ? Because ! ;-) If you are sending commands via e-mail the "// Job" and "// eoj" are not required .... I never put them... Remember there is no stupid questions, only stupid answers ... The most stupid question is the one we did not ask! the PW maybe required depending on the Validate keyword content... For batch import the manual gives: ADD LISTNAME DD=X IMPORT //X DD * ad1 name1 ad2 name2 adn namen /* I wonder if DELETE can work the same way ? The only advantage being not including the DELETE LISTNAME preceding every address line ... -- Eric Paul-Hus , BLUES-L