You will only need alias if the same field name is presented in both tables. What VFP version are you using?

>This is a bit long, but bear with me.
>
>I have done this sort of thing a few times, but in this case it's a bit different. Here's
>the scenerio.
>
>I allow the user to create custom list sorts. This is accomplished by allowing the
>user to to pick fields in any order they want. They get a list of plain text field names ,
>which I conver to actual field names.
>
>Each field they select is stored in a table called 'ListSortDetails', which has a sequence
>column to specify the order.
>
>So they could pick 'Customer Name', 'Order Date' and 'Total Amount' from the list of
>available columns. I then write out one record each for 'CustName, OrdDate and TotAmount'.
>
>When the want to sort by a column they can simply click on a column header. The column
>header has a property storing the column's associated field name, which is then passed to
>the LoadList method.
>
>To select a custom, multi-column sort they pick it from a list, which runs the following
>code:
>
>

>IF NOT USED("ListSortDetails")
>  SELECT 0
>  USE (oApp.cDataPath + "ListSortDetails")
>ENDIF
>
>SELECT FldName;
>  FROM ListSortDetails;
>  WHERE Parent_Id = nSortId;
>  ORDER BY Sequence;
>  INTO ARRAY Temp1
>	
>FOR nField = 1 TO ALEN(Temp1)
>	
>  cSort = cSort + ALLTRIM(Temp1[nField]) + ","
>
>ENDFOR
>	
>cSort = ALLTRIM(cSort)
>cSort = LEFT(cSort, LEN(cSort)-1)
>
>ThisForm.LoadList(cSort)
>
>

>
>In either case, the single column header or a custom sort, the field name or sort order
>string is passed to LoadList. When a sort value is passed in, the SQL's
>SORT BY clause has the parameter value appended to it.
>Here's the code:
>
>

>LPARAMETERS cSortOrder
>
>LOCAL cListItem, nItemIndex
>
>WITH .lstData
>
>  .ClearList()
>
>  IF EMPTY(cSortOrder)
>    cSortOrder = "e.internal_id"
>  ENDIF
>
>  select e.id,;
>      e.caption,;
>      e.internal_id,;
>      l.Caption as location,;
>      e.cur_meter,;
>      e.model,;
>      e.serial_no;
>    from equipment e;
>    left outer join locations l on l.id = e.location_id;
>    order by &cSortOrder;
>    into cursor temp1
>
>   IF _TALLY > 0
>
>      SELECT Temp1
>      SCAN
>		
>        && ... Add column info here
>		
>      ENDSCAN
>	
>   ENDIF
>
>ENDWITH
>

>
>The problem now is the JOIN. When this code is run against only one table, all
>ListSortDetails needs to store is the column name.
>
>In the case of the JOIN, I now need to store the table alias also.
>
>This seems like it could be real cumbersome.
>
>Anyone have a better idea?