i've found some help on the net by doing some more searching. i've made some modification to the posted code but it goes something like this:

***********************************************************
oDialog=crea("mscomdlg.commondialog.1")
oDialog.Flags = 0x80200
oDialog.MaxFileSize = 255 && maybe make this larger?
oDialog.Filename = ""
oDialog.ShowOpen

cFileList = oDialog.Filename

nOccurs = occurs(chr(0), cFileList)
if nOccurs = 0
dimension aFileList[1]
aFileList[1] = cFileList
else
dimension aFileList[1]
cPath = left(cFileList, at(chr(0), cFileList)-1)
cFileList = substr(cFileList, at(chr(0), cFileList)+1)
cFileList = strtran(cFileList, chr(0), chr(13))
aLines(aFileList, cFileList, .t.)
for nCnt = 1 to alen(aFileList)
     aFileList[nCnt] = cPath + "" + aFileList[nCnt]
next
endif

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i'm not sure how to add the items in the array to the attachment of the email, but i think i should be able to do that (unless somebody wants to beat me to it) :-)

paul