I'm used to Debian-based distros which have a tempfile(1) utility for safely and sanely creating temporary files. There isn't a comperable utility for RHEL/CentOS systems. I've been exercising Google-fu looking for a good robust tempfile generation idiom, but haven't turned one up yet. Hence this appeal to the lazyweb. -- Dr. Ed Morbius, Chief Scientist / | Robot Wrangler / Staff Psychologist | When you seek unlimited power Krell Power Systems Unlimited | Go to Krell!