Sorry to send this direct, the machine that has 5.8.1 on it can't see the outside world. It appears that AUTOLOAD will never see a request for a method (an autogenerated external data dictionary accessor in my case) called 'VERSION'. It will simply bypass it and try to return the (usually non-existant) scalar $FOO::VERSION (and, failed, the error message associated with that). This is fixed by having an explicit method called VERSION in one of the ancestors (ie: sub VERSION {...}). I wonder what other 'magical' names there are? Dirk -- Please Note: Some Quantum Physics Theories Suggest That When the Consumer Is Not Directly Observing This Message, It May Cease to Exist or Will Exist Only in a Vague and Undetermined State.Thread Next