>>< pre >
>>>
>>>"That's the rule VFP engine uses since forever. Too bad it's not documented."
>>>
>>>Too bad it's the rule for VFP that's not fixed when the engine has changed.
>>>
>>>Cetin
>>
>>I agree. That's a bug. It worked for the most part in vfp8. Now it fails in vfp9.
>
>It didn't produce an error in VFP8 but it didn't work correctly either.
>
><snip>

True.

But if we are speaking about the original problem.
Again assuming that ssno exists in the underlying table.

select distinct last_name, first_name, mid_name, ;
address1, address2, city, state, zip_code, ;
' ' as packet_id, ssn, right(ssn,4) as ssno ;
from temp ;
order by ssno, ssn

Does work in 8. Does work in MS SQL ( with a few changes :) ).
Does not work in 9.