ahh, very nice. please excuse my thick-wittedness. but ... what if, if i would like to add an additional, unique key to my structure; a last update time, maybe. name-identifer-time >> value; valu1:=map[nme1], valu1:=map[idf1], valu1:=map[time1] in this case bimap will not solve my problem and multiindex will be the best solution. is that right? and for interest, how to solve the original problem in this case? thnx daniel _____________________________________________________________________ Der WEB.DE SmartSurfer hilft bis zu 70% Ihrer Onlinekosten zu sparen! http://smartsurfer.web.de/?mc=100071&distributionid=000000000066