In my impatience, I went ahead and wrote a function using create table...then did a select from on my table...which was nasty in that it infolved managing temporary files AND a temporary DBC because I need long field names.

However, the post that pointed me at CREATE CURSOR took care of this mess...all I had to do was replace the create table clause and everything works perfectly. It gives me complete control over my field types and takes out the trash for me when I'm done.

Thanks for the help everybody!