The registry installed function returns a list of lists, the structure of which I don't understand to my satifaction. Given the two resulting entries returned by install, I gather the following: "pidgin 2.0.2 0 +msn 1 0", "pkgconfig 0.22 0 {} 1 0", The string is "$name $version $revision $variants $active $whatIsThis" $variants seems to be either an empty list, a string with a single variant, or a list or variants I do not know what $whatIsThis is. Looking at the source code of $ {prefix}/share/macports/Tcl/registry1.0/receipt_flat.tcl it seems that $whatIsThis is always a zero. What is it? Randall Wood rhwood@mac.com http://shyramblings.blogspot.com "The rules are simple: The ball is round. The game lasts 90 minutes. All the rest is just philosophy."