I finally figured out what was causing all my DTML woes. I was inadvertently using my old hacked version of DocumentTemplate 1.18. I had conciously deleted both the .py and .pyc versions of that module then went about my business. Unfortunately, when I later executed a make in one of my directories, make obligingly reinstalled that module. After that point I began hallucinating. What a lot of time I wasted today peering at the DTML docs and wondering why the implementation didn't match the documentation... :-/ excuse-me-while-I-crawl-back-under-my-rock-ly-y'rs, Skip Montanaro | Mojam: "Uniting the World of Music" http://www.mojam.com/ skip@calendar.com | Musi-Cal: http://concerts.calendar.com/ 518-372-5583