For some reason I thought ZSQL method calls were atomic, but they appear otherwise. Using an eGenix mxODBC Database Connection at /Database/PoPy_database_connection to a SQL Server 2000 back end, I have created a Python script to write SQL commands and feed them in one large string: UPDATE equip SET workstation=1 WHERE eq_id=39315; UPDATE node SET node='M28057' WHERE node_id=13451; UPDATE materiel SET mat_nm='mm-M28057-H-01', owner='mmaslak', datetime='2006/04/24 15:09:07.611 GMT-5' WHERE mat_id=39315; This all gets sent as one string to a ZSQL method where the first two commands execute, but the third fails because it doesn't like the datetime string, which indeed fails when I try it alone in the PoPy connection. Why, oh why doesn't the whole thing fail like I might expect? When I wrap the call in a 'begin transaction ... commit', it becomes atomic. Nothing happens if part of it fails. Great. But failure is not detectable by the Python script. I have used try/except and if/else blocks to ascertain failure. It thinks a non-commit is AOK, not an exception. Is this function of the eGenix ODBC? Of MS SQL Server 2K? Zope/ZSQL/Python? How can I detect failure and maintain atomicity? Michael Maslak, Jr. Associate Software Engineer Anteon Corporation 294 Thames Ave Bay St. Louis, MS 39520