The documentation for lists:sublist/3 gives an example to show that there is no error for start+length > the length of the list: > lists:sublist([1,2,3,4], 5, 2). [] However, in R12B-2 I try the following: > lists:sublist([1,2,3,4], 6, 2). ** exception error: no function clause matching lists:nthtail(1,[]) in function lists:sublist/3 jay