>This goes back to dBase days. All they had was parameters() and it always returns the number of args sent to the LAST UDF call. It also fails miserably in an interrupt driven GUI environment. You call a UDF via on OKL and bang parameters() changes rather inexplicably from the function's perspective. A truly odd implementation if ever there was.
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>At some point, I don't remember exactly when, FoxPro added the much more useful pcount() function, which always returns the number of arguments send to the currently executing function.

The PCOUNT() function has been added in Fox 2.6 and is marked as "For dBASE compatibility only" in the help under "What's New Since FoxPro 2.5".
I'm using it exclusively because of shorcommings of PARAMETERS() function you outlined above.