I'm playing with sockets (I'm on 'use Socket' not 'use IO::Socket' - I want to play with the low-level stuff then I'll look at the high-level version) I'm doing ok except for the infuriating 'does the same as the system call of the same name' which I find thoughout the manual. Problem is a windows system doesn't document unix system call very well! - Back to the point - my accept is working ok - but is a 'blocking' call (i.e: waits until data arrives before returning). I assume there is a non-blocking version of accept which I can use to check if there is data present but will return immediately if none is present. Problem is I don't know how to do this. I'm assuming it's a setsockopt of some kind - or a parameter to accept, but the manual won't tell me...;-(. Help please. Many thanks - cool web site by the way! Richard.