elf, true...gcc is smarter than bcc so it pops up the warning. even some of the later versions of bcc does. so it's a good programming practice to explicitly mention things. however, it's not mandatory and you get what you want (when you're not returning anything as in this case) ....when you're researching and don't worry about warnings but the result (coz u'll be writing like thousands of line of codes and most of the variables you define are not even used! ). warnings would be aplenty but they can be avoided later on. that was my point. btw, am no comp science major like most of you guys perhaps are.... oldmaven, that's fine bud! LooTe PS. let's help grad bro now, shall we? :P