Thanks for the reply John, I'll try to expose my "use case" with the hope this feature will be available in the future... I'm developing a system that detects TCP streams with a pattern matching, here is the pseudo code (in a simplified form) of the function I'd link to extend: protocol_stream decodeStream(tcp_stream) { foreach(registered protocol in the system) { required_size_to_match = calc_min_regex_len(current_protocol.regex); if(tcp_stream.buffer_size <= required_size_to_match) check if tcp_stream.buffer matches else try to read from tcp_stream if data is available until <required_size_to_match> and check again if matches } } Hope u can help since you have "an almost pathological interest in anything that can't be done" :) Thanks again _________________________________________________________________ C'è una nuova amica su Messenger… E' Doretta, vieni a conoscerla! http://www.doretta82.it/banner/index.html