Hi, the two following constructs should be equivalent IMHO, but the second one with the conditional assignment gives an error: <hansl> # 'check' really doesn't exist if isnull(check) scalar heyho = 0 else scalar heyho = check endif scalar heyho = isnull(check) ? 0 : check print heyho </hansl> And on an unrelated further note, the inbundle() function seems to require a quoted string, as in inbundle(mybundle,"keystring"). I don't have a big problem with that (although it seems to go a little against gretl style), but it would be nice if it could be documented in the function reference. Also, inbundle() currently doesn't appear in the bundle chapter of the manual. (I know, could add it myself...) thanks, sven