Hi Sergey,

I understand that a character field cannot be longer the 254, but I need the memo field to stay a memo field, not be converted into a character field. Is that possible in vfp8?

>A character field cannot be longer than 254 charaters. In VFP9 you could use CAST() to make result a memo but not in VFP8.
>

>...
>  PADR(ALLTRIM(contacttype) + " - " + TEXT,254) AS act_notes,
>...
>

>
>>I had a simalier problem back in 2006, but I can't seem to fix this one. I have a select string:
>>

>>SELECT TYPE, calldate AS act_time, lcPrblem AS problem_id, ;
>>  "OLDFLTDB" AS user_id, lcclient AS client_id, ;
>>  ALLTRIM(contacttype) + " - " + ;
>>  TEXT AS act_notes, ;  <------- this is a memo field
>>  "Number: " + ALLTRIM(STR(NUMBER)) ;
>>  + "  ID: " + ALLTRIM(STR(ID)) AS nxtact_not, ;  <------- this is a memo field
>>  TTOD(calldate) AS act_date ;
>>  FROM ctempaction LEFT JOIN cactiontype ;
>>  ON ctempaction.TYPE = cactiontype.contacttypeid ;
>>  WHERE NUMBER = lnnumber ;
>>  AND !EMPTY(TEXT) ;
>>  INTO CURSOR csupaction READWRITE nofilter
>>

>>
>>I am getting 'String is too long'. I have tried pading the text to be greater the 255 at all time. but that causes the error on all records.
>>
>>Any suggestions?
>>
>>TIA
>>Beth