My initial code to get LOAD to use "jar:file:" was rather hackish in that it didn't consider enough scope of the impact so I've been looking hard at implementing TRUENAME, PROBE-FILE, MERGE-PATHNAMES (and eventually PROBE-DIRECTORY and DIRECTORY) for "jar:file" entries. I'd like to propose we change the use of the "jar:file:" string to only occur in the namestring representation of a jar file entry, i.e. the device entry would always be a "real" pathname. So what would currently be CL-USER> (pathname-name (pathname-device #p"jar:file:abcl.jar!/foo")) "jar:file:abcl" which would become CL-USER> (pathname-name (pathname-device #p"jar:file:abcl.jar!/foo")) "abcl" under my proposal. This would simplify the needed code quite a bit as one just has to detect we are dealing with a jar entry reference, pull the pathname out of device, and pass it to a sub-routine. And according to the unofficial specification of the "jar:file" URI schema, it is invalid not to have a reference to the entry by the path following the "!/" (i.e. "jar:file:abcl.jar" has no meaning, just "jar:file:abcl.jar!/foo"). I've started to implement this, but would like to float this idea across the list to see if there are objections and/or problems I've not foreseen. -- "A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare to it now."