note fbicknel <p>I do appreciate your reply. You said Car->new, then had a means of figuring out it was a BMW, so I'll take that as a + vote (not literally, of course).</p> <p>Got your caution about circular dependancies. This seems at least to be a limited breach of said contract. Just call Car->new once, then forevermore know that the returned object is typed according to your specifications. No harm in that? <grin></p> 984496 984498