For anyone who cares, this seems to be an issue unique to the 1.8.6 (2007-03-13 patchlevel 0) [i386-mswin32] version of Ruby I have. I have not tried other patch levels of 1.8.6, but I have tried 1.8.7 and 1.9.1, and they both work as expected. Dave -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.