Hi again, Perhaps if I get in the habit of adding more detail in the first message, a higher number of Zenful types will feel they have enough information to hazard a guess. Better late than never, so here's a sample of the code in the SQL Query Template Edit Box : update user_login_table set unique_row_id = <dtml-sqlvar "_.string.zfill(_.str(_.int('sequence-index')),9)" type=nb> and, here are even more ways to try adding a "sequence-item" argument into the ZSQLmethod Edit Window that don't work : _.getitem(sequence-index) , "_.getitem(sequence-index)" , expr=_.getitem(sequence-index) , expr="_.getitem(sequence-index)" , and, "expr=_.getitem(sequence-index) BTW, the question is bound to come up, as in, "Why in the name of Zope do you need to do this?" Wouldn't the world would be a lovely place if every table that any Desktop Database user had ever misconceived included a Record ID? Alas no. The shameful truth is, all I'm really trying to do is stuff a string that's predictably exclusive into each row, so that I can comfortably fall back into my bad old habits from dBase days, and easily retrieve single records for processing . . . Thanks for any clues! Jerry S.