>George,
>
>If I ask about a file that doesn't exist all I get back is 2 and nothing in the buffer. It works fine is an existing file is sent.
>
That's strange. I tested it prior to posting to see if it would work. And it did. Unfortunately, it may have existed somewhere (like the default directory) and I wasn't aware of it. This'll teach me to use random file names when testing something like this. After re-testing, you're right, it doesn't. The file must exist for it to work. Perhaps I didn't re-assign the variable properly. Thanks, David. Sorry, Tim.