>You didn't mention it so I will go with a basic
>
>seek (alltrim(variable))
>
>and set your index to alltrim(variable)

In Visual, you can pass SEEK extra parameters.

=SEEK(luVar, lcAlias, lcIndex)

For example:

lcCustID = 'FITZGERG'
IF SEEK(lcCustID, 'customer', 'cCustID')
WAIT WINDOW lcCustID + ' was found in ' + customer.cCity
ENDif