At one point we discussed file system abstractions on this list. Do we want to pursue the idea? I have an implementation that's been tested on Unix: a Filesystem instance refers to either the entire "native" filesystem, or a subset of a filesystem (either a filesystem object or the native filesystem), based on a "root" that's a directory within the parent filesystem. There'd need to be some work done to make sure it works properly on Windows and the Mac, but I don't think that would be a lot of work. I think this should be available as an abstraction in Python. Implementing this on top of a ZIP/JAR file is also useful. If Jim A.'s zipfile.py will be added to the standard library in 1.6, I'd like to add a Filesystem class that operates on a zipfile object. Any thoughts? If you want this, someone needs to check in and document zipfile.py. ;) I'll add filesys.py & it's documentation. -Fred -- Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake at acm.org> Corporation for National Research Initiatives