Dale,

The rule that I use is this, if the routine being written could be considered as an extension of the underlying language then I make it a UDF otherwise it is a method of some object.

For example: If I am writing code to calculate teh differ4ence between two datatime values and return a string as "## Years, ## Months, ## Days, ## Hours, and ## Seconds" I might create it as a UDF.

If I am writing code to format a mailing address' city line as, "City, State ZipCode" I would make it a method of an object. Probably an address formatting object. Why, because the names of the fields will change from application to application perhaps even from table to table. Handling non-us addresses requires different code, so subclassing could be an advantage. The point is that formatting is not an extension of the underlying language.