I can get this code to write correctly to a file, but it will read as 0/0/0. What can i do to stop it ? Ive tried some casting but its gives me a cast error error message about operator not defined. help ! ~V''lion template data_t file::fget(long offset) { data_t value; nfile.seekg(offset, ios::beg);//resets the file pointer to 0 nfile.read((char *) &value, sizeof(data_t) ); return value; } struct DATE { short day; char fil1; short month; char fil2; short year; DATE(short fday=0, short fmonth=0, short fyear=0) { fil1=fil2 = ''/''; day=fday; month=fmonth; year=fyear; } }; int main() { file fio = "test.bin"; DATE ret; DATE valu(1000,2000,3000); fio.write(valu); ret = fio.fget(0); cout << ret.day << '' '' << ret.fil1 << '' '' << ret.month << '' '' << ret.fil2 << '' '' << ret.year; return 0; } I came, I saw, I got programmers block. ~V''lion