Reporting back. The attached built w/o issue for Perl 5.8.9 and 5.16.0. A patched Perl 5.8.9 successfully ran a perl script that confirmed the functionality of NetWare's select() now when driven through IO::Socket/IO::Select. The final clincher was the failure of the Novell 5.8.4(+) to properly run the test script. The A.S.S.P. package proved to have more issues on a NetWare box than just select() not working; it seems to assume PerlIO, while AFAIK all recent builds of NetWare Perl used STDIO... The program would reach an 'open' with 3 vars and the processing just stopped for that incoming packet. Where the code here goes is now a bigger puzzle. It is not a patch, and I don't believe it belongs in core in any case. It also doesn't fit in the .\Netware dir either as that uses an older CLib library that didn't have select() in the first place. IF Novell was still building NetWare that would have been the obvious choice, but alas... So the code is at least NOW in the public domain, (as it exists with help from the perl-dev's) and will at least make it to a search engine. The code 'works' but any suggestions for improvement are welcome. >> Thanks for persevering with this. > Sometimes it feels like not wanting to let go of a bone, but it also > irked me that the (Novell) Perl had a bug. Everyone on this list likely > has a similar aversion. > >> Nicholas Clark >> Thanks again for the assistance and insights; it's finally off the To-Do list. Regards, Norm