# this should use an add-to-set idiom
	    # how about:
	    local(%tmprefs);
	    grep($tmprefs{$_}=1,@tmp);
	    $tmprefs{$k} = 1;
	    &database_putvalue($idb,$_,join(":",keys %tmprefs));
	    # but then again -- this may be misguided, since
	    # what we really want is the initial REFS to be unique,
	    # these may be automatically unique! sigh...