h3r3tic, the reason that I only used it once was that I was testing it to check that it would work before using it changing all the code to use it, but I forgot about it And thanks for the reply, Juridian, I'll definitely have a look for that book. I think the reason that I've done some of the things that you've pointed out is that it's the way we were taught at uni and I haven't learned a better way, but hopefully I can check out that book.

To be honest, I'm not quite certain why I did those empty println's...I can't have been thinking right at the time

Thanks a lot for the replies

ac