Wow! Hey, sketchMedia, many thanks for the clear explanations.

As I mentioned, I had read the PHP manual on these functions, but my criticism of the manual is that it SOMETIMES seems written for folks who already know PHP, but just need to be reminded of how this or that works.

The user notes are sometimes helpful, but most of the time are written as professional-to-professional. As I learn more, the PHP manual becomes incrementally more helpful.

That being said, your summaries are VERY clear and I've added them to my reference file in order to refer back to many times, I'm sure, in the future.

Dave