>> I've looked at various search-and-replace snippets but none that address >> what I am trying to do....
I think you need to tell more about what you're trying to do. You say it's in a database? Is that why you can't just put the whole blob in your text editor and do search-and-replace? And is that also why you can't turn it into a giant string and do giantstring.replace('unwanted','wanted') rd -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list