Amazing that this was not emphasized enough in the section about SQL-Commands / Select. I mean, it is obvious now.... but, I took it for granted VFP knew to either pull the full values from the table and display them properly, or to get the 0, without ill-effect.

Oh well.... does MS-SQL or Access do any better in this regard?

>Don't know, but it was just one of this little tricks I remember from back in the 2.6 days, pre VFP.
>
>>You learn something NEW-OLD everyday around here!!! I wonder if this is in the HELP with VFP somewhere?????
>>
>>>Known way that SELECT works. If the first value the SELECT pulls is 0, the field would only be 1 numeric wide, not large enough for your use. Setting the field to a 0 value as you've disccovered with the proper width fixes it. In VFP9, this can be dealt with using the CAST() function.