Here's what the API sez 'bout this This class provides a skeletal implementation of the Collection interface, to minimize the effort required to implement this interface. To implement an unmodifiable collection, the programmer needs only to extend this class and provide implementations for the iterator and size methods. (The iterator returned by the iterator method must implement hasNext and next.) To implement a modifiable collection, the programmer must additionally override this class's add method (which otherwise throws an UnsupportedOperationException), and the iterator returned by the iterator method must additionally implement its remove method. And i think i'll say that this is an abstract class . Tell me if i am wrong . Hope this help's Hey I became a ranch hand [This message has been edited by Ashish Hareet (edited July 20, 2001).]