>>I see. Yes, I may try to write something like that to apply structural changes. It also helps to eliminate deleted records.
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>Actually, when the structure between the two versions doesn't change, the table gets copied through a COPY FILE, which is much faster. Of course, in this case deleted records would not get eliminated, so you may want a separate utility to PACK.
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>On the other hand, checking whether the structure is identical is not trivial; you would have to check field names, types, validation rules, etc., and many more, I think. It is mainly here that I use a VFX function.

I wrote my own DataDictionary about 7 (!) years ago. I think I would not attempt to do it now <g>