Hi Viv

>Hex adds nothing - it just a different way of writing/visualizing a number.

Yes true for numeric fields. As per the VFP help, VarBinary can be used in BITTEST/SET() and VarBinary can be of 255 in length.

Does this mean we have 255 options as we would have in a character field or so many bytes as compared to the double you suggested (double is 8 bytes with about 52 usable bits, this one can go upto 255 characters thus a proportionate no. of bits)?