>Hi Ed,
>
>Thanks for the response. What you suggest reminds me of a constraint. The report is actually running in another VFP EXE. I think this removes my capacity for setting the variable in the manner you suggest. Honestly, the scoping thing from that point of view is still somewhat nebulous.
>
>What I am trying at this point is to create a report variable and make a call to a function which can answer the question and return the result as a part of its own memory scope.
>
>Thanks again!
>Larry

I can't say it's quite clear to me, but you may always pass the variable as a parameter to some method that will run the report:
LPARAMETERS lMyvar
Report Form myreport Preview

You may also create/pass an object the same way, if you have many variables.