Bruce > ... GNAT has a package that will > give you SPITBOL patterns, which are a superset of what Perl gives > you (GNAT.Spitbol.Patterns)... Sorry, SPITBOL patterns are not a superset of awk/Perl/un*x/cshell regular expressions. Spitbol is a different language than the awk regular expressions. For example, the plus sign means very different things in the two languages. It is theoretically possible to program a parser and a backend which invokes appropriate SPITBOL patterns corresponding to each awk regular expression. However, that is not a trivial parser and backend to design and debug. Therefore, it should not be said that SPITBOL patterns are a superset of awk patterns. Rather it should be said that SPITBOL is a different, but more powerful, pattern recognition capability than awk regular expressions. Please tell me I am wrong and that an awk regular expression parser is available that implements regular expressions via gnat.spitbol, or via any other means. The Ada community sorely needs to point at the existence of this facility. Mike Brenner