Jerry and Michael already gave the substantive answer to Larry's question... I will add one small caution; where Michael said: > Why not just take Image out of the problem by using dynamic > data set expansion. It works for details and masters and > relieves you from the tedium you've been experiencing. Excellent suggestion..... Dynamic Dataset Expansion (DDX) is one of the really nice new features to be added to IMAGE in the last few years.... and for DETAIL datasets you can run DDX for as long as you want; unless and until of course you either: (1) Hit MAXCAP (2) Fill up your discs. Although: One SIDEBAR minor caution on DDX for DETAILs: Don't set your INCREMENT too small; if you run for a long time with a tiny increment and do not regularly defrag your discs, I expect your datasets could get pretty badly fragmented (YMMV I suppose; depending on available free space and free area distribution).... Anyway: From my recollection of all discussions about DDX for MASTERs, I would caution users that letting MASTER DDX go on for a long time may lead to performance problems; i.e.: The number of entries added in the expansion area becomes a "significant" percentage of the original hashing capacity (I'm not going to guess at what "significant" is tonight; again expect YMMV). I like to think of DDX for MASTERs as a somewhat temporary "safety catch"; that will keep you going until the next convenient opportunity to rehash the master; not a permanent operational state like DDX for DETAILs (except for MASTERs that only gain "a few" additional entries after initial load or etc., of course)..... IIRC HP has used similar words about Master DDX at recent SIGIMAGE meetings... Ken Sletten