>>When the calculated field length is calculated based on a first matching record and when it is not?
>
>God knows, then VFP:)
>What I learnt (try it once first but) if the query is not based on an expression like alltrim(), pad*() playing with the size or a udf but an expression like nvl(), iif(),evl() ... then VFP uses the field's length.
>It somehow started to improve after VFP6.
>Cetin

Thanks a lot, I will keep it in mind.