Really enjoyed the article. Thanks. Great demo for my advanced training labs. Have done this in Oracle several times and is interesting to see how SQL server pages map out by comparison. There are many more control fields in Oracle but the design drivers are exactly the same - how do you delploy object data into linear records in an ordinary file - and then how do you find that data. /BW/ PS. screwed up the feedback - sorry. Meant to be 5 stars, Idiot!