My choice would beexcessblk = None if total > P.BASE: excessblk = ...
Diez and Jean-Michel,Ha! Your suggestion above was my *original* coding. It looks like I'm evolving backwards!
But doesn't it violate the DRY principle? The token "excessblk" appears twice instead of once.
Thanks again, John -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list