>thanks Fabio
>
>If the Visual Foxpro choice works why is it not a good choice (perhaps cos is hidden)?
>
>Regards
>Geoff
>

The fact that something works it doesn't mean anything,
when a choice is done,
is not important to understand what can be done ( this is banal ),
it needs to understand what cannot be done with the choice ( this is not banal ).

With the MSSQL way you can use the new and the current value,
with VFP you cannot:

* @field1 is the new value, field1 is the current value
* example
UPDATE myTable
SET @field1 = field1 = someValue
,   field2 = COALESCE(field1,@field1) -- field2 become current field1 if it is not null, otherwise it become the new field1