>The thing I have found is this...
>
>SET FIXED OFF and SET FIXED ON make no difference to this whatsoever.
>
>The help says this:
>ON
>Uses the SET DECIMALS setting to determine the number of decimal places displayed in results. The default number of decimal places is 2.
>OFF
>(Default) Allows the number of decimal places displayed in results to depend on the specific constants, variables, and operators used in a numeric expression. The contents of fields are displayed with the declared number of decimal places.
>
>I would have expected that with SET FIXED OFF, I would not get this:
>
>? VAL('1.615')
>1.62
>
>I am expecting 1.615 as the answer.
>
>Why do these things always go wrong when there are a million and one other things to fix?
>
>Simon

Just force them to take notice of what you want:
? ROUND( VAL( '1.615'), 3))

or, if '1.615' is in a char var:

? ROUND( VAL( lcNumber), 3)

Now has this worked? I keep repeating the func. but you don't say if the problem is gone :-)