>>the problem is in the SELECT FROM command
>
>Ah, I see. In the documentation, I don't note that there's any reference to using the fully qualified name and path. Further, VFP searches the current Fox path (SET PATH TO...) when trying to execute a query. You can't expect it to return the file name with every path on it, can you?

This can be if I don't define a filename completely qualified,
but if I furnish the absolute/relative file path,
then VFP MUST not remove it and try to find the simple name,
otherwise it is a serious bug.

CREATE TABLE MYTABLE FREE (BB I)
USE
ON ERROR ? MESSAGE(), "Expected ",tname

CLEAR 
tname="MYTABLE.dbf"
SELECT * FROM (tname)

tname="somepath\MYTABLE.dbf"
SELECT * FROM (tname)

tname="c:\somepath\MYTABLE.dbf"
SELECT * FROM (tname)