>Hi Dragan
>
>>Alter table... alter column ...{same as it was, just add the clause} NOCPTRANS
>
>Oh, sorry, I was not thinking in terms of tables just memory variables, but yes I need to store the original string in a FPD table character (memo field if required).
>
>Here is the modus oprandi. I have a FPD 2.5b table to maintain the clients individual details, one of them is this char(10) field which will contain the 80 bits value in character.
>
>This and other fields will then be scattered into array and into a .mem file.
>
>The VFP application will then read this .mem file (which has not changed over time) and assign the char(10) bit-wise code into variable/property along with the other array elements stored in it.

Why not. And you can do bit-wise arithmetics in FPD if you set library to fpath.plb, though the functions are band(), bor(), bxor() etc. All other fpath/foxtools functions which were migrated into VFP proper have kept their names, only word* and bitwise function haven't.