A few hours ago I sent a query to the asking how an LDBASE command select * in piporg-l.(6295-6345) could lead to a negative hit count: --> Database PIPORG-L, -1234 hits. It turns out after further investigation that the highest article number is 5074, so the range specified in the command is entirely off-scale. But it still would be nice if the response returned would be more explicit about this. /b