I'm  sorry  but  it  can't  be  an option.  This  means  twice  the  code
everywhere, as in  "if format is XEDITable then do;  read the whole file,
discard everything but  the headers, skip empty lines,  discard the first
one, look for all occurences of 'XYZ=', merge the contents together, etc;
end; else  do; search the record  starting with 'KXYZ ',  if found return
its value,  otherwise return ''".  So, it has  to be always  XEDITable or
never XEDITable, no option.
 
  Eric