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