>I have a table where I need an index tag with the first character field in accending order and the second field which is a date in descending order. In VFP3 and VFP5 the following tag worked fine.
>
>INDEX ON location + STR({01/01/2020}-date_samp,8,0) tag location

The better way to do this is (if it suits your needs):

SELECT * ;
   FROM myTable ;
   ORDER BY location ASC, date_samp DESC

To get the index to work better, try using VFP's Strict Date syntax:

INDEX ON location + STR({^2200/01/01} - date_samp, 8, 0) TAG location

I don't know if that will do anything, but it can't hurt to try....