Thanks, The date = sanesplit[1] line complains about the "list index being out of range", which is probably due to the fact that not all lines have the <td> in them, something i didn't explain in the previous post.
I'd need some way of ensuring, as with the pattern I'd concocted, that a valid line actually starts with a <td> containing a / separated date tag. As an aside, is it not actually possible to do what I was trying with a single pattern or is it just not practical? M@ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
