Thanks for the patch aj. I imported a (slightly modified) version using auto_ptr<> into baz at: michael.vogt@ubuntu.com--2005/apt--bts225947--0 [0]. The source is also availabe at: http://people.debian.org/~mvo/apt/bts225947 (aptable source). Please give it a try and tell me if it works for you. Cheers, Michael [0] in http://people.ubuntu.com/arch/ubuntu -- Linux is not The Answer. Yes is the answer. Linux is The Question. - Neo