Dear List - I'm lost on this one - This works - $out = system("ls -l ",$retvals); printf("%s", $out); This does - echo exec("ls -l"); This does not - if( !file_exists("/var/www/orders.txt")); { $out = system("touch /var/www/orders.txt", $ret); $out2 = system("chmod 766 /var/www/orders.txt", $ret); echo 'file2<br />'; echo file_exists("/var/www/orders.txt"); } and this does not - if( !file_exists("/var/www/orders.txt")); { exec("touch /var/www/orders.txt"); exec("chmod 766 /var/www/orders.txt"); echo 'file2<br />'; echo file_exists("/var/www/orders.txt"); } Ethan -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php