Hi Beth,

I would recommend to select memo as is and perform changes on the cursor later with the replace command.

>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