Hi Grant, > Methinks I'll change mine to not move 'val' assignment under lock > and add blank in macro -- follow similar style. Absolutely, I failed to comment on this - I am admittedly lost in the flow of mails (which is why I want us to do one thing at a time). As I said there is no point in locking during simple_strtol, so moving it outside is better for performance and understanding, I think. -- Jean Delvare