Hi, \doifelse does not work inside any MP environment. Something really strange happens if you try to use it. \loggingall tells me what exactly is happening, but I do not know enough low-level TeX to understand why this is happening. Conside this test file %---------------------- \def\test{string} \starttext \doifelse{\test}{string}{test is a string}{or not} \loggingall \startMPcode draw \doifelse{\test}{string}{fullcircle}{fullsquare} scaled 5cm ; \stopMPcode \stoptext %------------------------ It does not compile correctly. Intesting pieces from the log file (actually the MKII log, since that is more interesting) \dostartMPcode #1\stopMPcode ->\startuseMPgraphic {@@}#1\stopuseMPgraphic \useMPgraphic {@@}\endgroup #1<-draw \doifelse {\test }{string}{fullcircle}{fullsquare} scaled 5cm ; ... \doifelse #1#2->\edef \!!stringa {#1}\edef \!!stringb {#2}\ifx \!!stringa \!!stringb \expandafter \firstoftwoarguments \else \expandafter \secondoftwoargument s \fi #1<-\test #2<-string \!!stringa ->currentcolor \test ->string \!!stringb ->black {no mode: \ifx: (level 5) entered on line 11} {false} {\else: \ifx (level 5) entered on line 11} {\expandafter} {\fi: \ifx (level 5) entered on line 11} ..... \ascii -> draw \edef currentcolor{string}\edef black{string}fullsquare scaled 5cm ; {changing \MPascii=undefined} {into \MPascii=macro:-> draw \edef currentcolor{string\ETC.} {\the} Notice the first line of \ascii, and compare that with the definition of \doifelse. The command \!!stringa inside the definition of \doifelse gets expanded too soon. Is there any way to get this work, other than doing the comparison outside the MP code. Aditya