>Macro are a good idea, slows the execution of the code. When a macro is encountered, value of the variable is substituted, and the entire line is compiled before it is executed. The Evaluate() function performs faster then Macros, because the expression is the only thing being evaluated at runtime.

You probably meant

dAirDate1 = eval(m.cAlias+".AirDate")

instead of

dAirDate1 = eval(&cAlias+".AirDate")

as a replacement for

dAirDate1 = &cAlias..AirDate

but for the particular UC the fastest way is

Store (m.cAlias+".AirDate") to dAirDate1

.
But in most cases on today's machines even macroexpansion is not a big drag: just calling a method carries about the same overhead. Finding the correct algorithm/data/table structure gives usually better perf than micro-optimizations like that - most of the time they are premature optimizations. About the only case where such an exchange made a clear difference was substituting it in the generic get/setprop methods of a "homegrown" framework I was asked to optimize, which were called a couple of thousand times at recurring times like start, save and so on (yeah, I reduced the number of calls as well <g>).

my 0.02 EUR

thomas