Thanks Mark. That seems to be about the consensus more or less and sort of how I envisaged it. Like you say there is no magic bullet, so I'll have to bite the bullet (not the magic one that doesn't exist) and get on with it. At the moment I'm so fed up with juggling so many balls in the air, without having to revisit and redo an old utility, that I feel like putting a few bullets in the chamber!

Terry


>>>Here is a wild idea. If you set a standard for field naming convention that they MUST abide by, then you could go to an XML format and use XMLTOCURSOR() to create your cursor.
>>>
>>
>>Thanks Mark
>>
>>Something to consider. However, how do I get the import text file to XML format and why?
>
>The XML file would be the file your client creates. After re-reading your dilema, I see that PointX (a 3rd party software?) is creating the text file and probably would not be able to create an XML file for you.
>
>What I have done in the past is create a data mapping table that my app uses to import a txt file with fixed length data. Importing delimited data would work as well also. The meta data in my mapping table lists the "field" in the text file, how long the fixed length is and what position in the file it begins. The last field in the table indicates where the data element goes (i.e., the table and field names). I loop through the records to generate my "CREATE CURSOR" command and use macro expansion to create the cursor to APPEND the text file into.
>
>You could present this meta data to them so they can "make adjustments" based on what they exported to this text file.
>
>I am afraid there just is no magic bullet here unless the first line in the text file is string of field names.