Hi Steven and all -

I've been eyeing utplsql for a month now like I would a new Ferrari. I finally had some time to download it today and after bribing my dba with a trip to Aruba in exchange for utl_file access and create synonym rights, I think I have everything set up correctly.

It appears that utplsql is doing what it is supposed to, but the odd thing is that when I attempt the betwnstr example, it fails "null end" test. Indeed, when I run

select betwnstr('abcde', 2, null) from dual

I get 'bcde' as the answer. But when I run

select substr('abcde', 2, null - 2 + 1) from dual

I get null. Can anyone explain this? We're on Oracle 7.3.4 with PL/SQL 3.3.4.0.0. Many thanks.