>I find it much easier to read code that contains the actual SQL command than code that builds a string and executes it.

Tamar,
what is the difference (for reading the code) between these:

TEXT TO lcSQL NOSHOW PRETEXT 15 TEXTMERGE
     SELECT <<aLine[1]>> AS <<BlaBla>>
           FROM ....
ENDTEXT
&lcSQL

and this:

SELECT (aLine[1]) AS (BlaBla)
       FROM ....

:-) at least for debugging you could have MessageBox(lcSQL) or STRTOFILE(lcSQL,[...]) or even saw what you want in Watch window after first approach.