Use CAST() or PADR() function.

>I am running the following line of code in vfp to return a sqlserver record set
>
>SQLEXEC(MAIN_DATA_SOURCE,"SELECT REPLICATE(' ', (8 - LEN(ltr_name))) + ltr_name AS paddedlettername,ltr_desc FROM Ltrfile",'testcursor')
>
>when the cursor is returned the field paddedlettername is data type memo instead of character.
>
>now when I run it again with the follwing code
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>SQLEXEC(MAIN_DATA_SOURCE,"SELECT REPLICATE(' ', (8)) + ltr_name AS paddedlettername,ltr_desc FROM Ltrfile",'testcursor')
>
>the paddedlettername field is of type character.
>Does anyone know why and is there a way I could get it to return as character while still including the LEN function ?
>