Hi guys! I admit not having tracked this thread in detail BUT attached is a changeset that I dug out from the Squeak beginners list where I posted it waaay back. The added Date class method included below shows what it offers. And of course, there are TONS of more cool stuff it could handle, but it is meant to be "smart enough" for a reasonable set of cases. ...And it was an "hour hack" ... :) regards, Göran ----------------------------- readFrom: inputStream pattern: pattern "Read a Date from the stream based on the pattern which can include the tokens: y = A year with 1-n digits yy = A year with 2 digits yyyy = A year with 4 digits m = A month with 1-n digits mm = A month with 2 digits d = A day with 1-n digits dd = A day with 2 digits ...and any other Strings inbetween. Representing $y, $m and $d is done using \y, \m and \d and slash itself with \\. Simple example patterns: 'yyyy-mm-dd' 'yyyymmdd' 'yy.mm.dd' 'y-m-d' A year given using only two decimals is considered to be >2000." | day month year patternStream char | patternStream := pattern readStream. [patternStream atEnd] whileFalse: [ inputStream atEnd ifTrue: [^nil]. char := patternStream next. char = $\ ifTrue: [inputStream next = patternStream next ifFalse: [^nil]] ifFalse: [ char = $y ifTrue: [ (patternStream nextMatchAll: 'yyy') ifTrue: [year := (inputStream next: 4) asInteger] ifFalse: [ (patternStream peekFor: $y) ifTrue: [ year := (inputStream next: 2) asInteger] ifFalse: [ year := Integer readFrom: inputStream]]] ifFalse: [ char = $m ifTrue: [ (patternStream peekFor: $m) ifTrue: [ month := (inputStream next: 2) asInteger] ifFalse: [ month := Integer readFrom: inputStream]] ifFalse: [ char = $d ifTrue: [ (patternStream peekFor: $d) ifTrue: [ day := (inputStream next: 2) asInteger] ifFalse: [ day := Integer readFrom: inputStream]] ifFalse: [ inputStream next = char ifFalse: [^nil]]]]]]. (year isNil | month isNil | day isNil) ifTrue: [^nil]. ^self year: year month: month day: day! !