Hi, Many thanks to Osamu, Chris and Jay who helped me to solve my problem with HANDANDHAND call. Well, I am quite sure I read somewhere that the handles should be locked before calling that function. I will use some of your suggestions about getting the state of the handles and enlarging the first one. Osamu Shigematsu wrote: >> You must install error handlers, too. Sure, but at the moment my application is still under construction, in fact, I知 just trying to find the principles that will answer a given problem. Chris.Young@... wrote: >>What version of FB are you using ? I know in the past that certain >> versions had FN HANDANDHAND defined as hndl2& = FN HANDANDHAND(hndl1&), instead >> of the IM-correct OSErr = FN HANDANDHAND(hndl1&, hndl2&). >> >> You can substitute the IM correct call by using: >> >> LOCAL MODE > LOCAL FN PascalHandAndHand(srcHandle&,@dstPtr&) >> ` move.l ^srcHandle&,A0 >> ` move.l ^dstPtr&,A2 >> ` move.l (A2),A1 >> ` _HandAndHand >> ` move.l A0,(A2) >> ` move.w D0,^OsErr >> END FN = OsErr First of all thank you for your complete answer. I read in technical note #17 that the problem was fixed with FB 1.02. BTW I知 running FB II 2.3.1, but I leave your piece of code in this post, in case someone else missed your reply. >> As far as a TMPL resource goes, I don't know of a TMPL def parameter for strings >> shorter than 256 bytes, so that may be a problem. If this is the case, I知 afraid there is no solution except storing resID of STR resources in record's fields instead of the strings themselves. Jay Reeve wrote: >> size = FN GETHANDLESIZE(HandleRub1&) >> sep$=" - " 'separator string >> OSErr = FN SETHANDLESIZE(HandleRub1&,size+3) >> BLOCKMOVE @sep$+1,[strHndl&]+size,3 'add sep to first handle > >> 'VVV What does this do? Just curious. I will follow you with BLOCKMOVE solution, instead of poking values like Osamu suggested because I will surely need different separators in the future. The main purpose of the program is to build a text file with Xpress tags, starting with a database (the fields may contain cariage return and can be of any length, so I think I must use handles to store the data, waiting with eagerness FB^3 and its variable$$). Some of the database fields must be concatenated and that is the part of FN accrocherub(r1,r2) I posted to the list. The resulting layout is rather complex because of the constraints. Xdata and Xtags could not produce this kind of catalog (according to what the reseller told me after I faxed him a template). Actually, I知 not certain that my filter will fullfill its goal, even more, I知 not sure the mechanism that I have imagined will fit. Did I quench your curiosity ? I will not go further because many list members will not find any interest in that point even though it could be a topic of discussion on how FB could be used to work out my problem. Anyway, maybe someone on the list knows other products to automatize layouts (on Mac or PC. Do I need to say my pref ?). All suggestions are welcome. Once again thank you all for your answer. Alain