For the archives: "Record" instances and instances of derives classes are very strange objects. * they do not have a "__dict__" attribute * they define a "__setattr__" that allows to modify the "Record" attributes but raise an Attribute Error if one tries to modify any other attribute. As a consequence, there are no instance attributes beside that defined by the record schema. This applies especially to Z SQL Method brains. They cannot use instance attributes. What a mess! Dieter