note rdfield I managed to break [cpan://Data::Dumper|it] with a HOAOHOAOHOA with a mere 100 entries...I watched the memory usage climb to 1.5GB before it gave up. It worked OK with 75 which was enough for me to verify the structure, so I didn't bother persuing a solution. For the record, [cpan://Storable] worked OK with the structure so persistence was achievable (into an Oracle LOB as it happens).<P>rdfield 209044 209044