Neil,

Please check Eliminating duplicates in a table FAQ #8129

You can not use RECNO(), etc. functions on a select with multiple tables involved.

>Hi,
>
>I am trying to clean up duplicates in an existing database.
>
>The problem is that with the select statement below I am getting the record number of the cursor dups and not the record number of the file xpat.
>
>Any ideas.
>
>

>SELECT RECNO() as recno, xpat.patid, xpat.lastname, xpat.firstname ;
>FROM xpat ;
>  JOIN ( ;
>   SELECT xpat.patid, COUNT(*) AS nCount ;
>      FROM xpat ;
>      GROUP BY patid HAVING nCount > 1) Dups ;
>   ON xpat.patid = Dups.patid ;
>   ORDER BY xpat.patid, xpat.lastname ;
>   INTO CURSOR HasDups
>
>Join Dups and delete all but lowest record number
>