>Thanks Cetin and Hilmar. The point of my question is I don't know where my users might want to take the data. That's why I wanted to provide the most generic format I could. As Hilmar suggests I have been using the FOXPLUS format for this. However I am about to launch a new app where my user base will be much less controlled and I really don't know what other programs they might want to import into. I couldn't tell from the HELP which of the 2 formats is older/newer.

TYPE FOXPLUS, I understand, is basically dBASE III / dBASE III PLUS, which are recognized by lots of systems - although you may want to do some additional tests.

The proprietary VFP DBF format is NOT as widely recognized; for that reason, TYPE FOXPLUS would be preferable.

You might also consider the option of providing other export formats, including:

Excel, also recognized by several systems.

Comma-delimited text; this is a little problematic, because the fields themselves may include commas.

Fixed-width fields (also as a text file); importing this into another system may be tricky, but Excel (to give an example) does a decent job with its wizard for parsing such stuff.

Or you might just wait and see what sort of requirements the clients have.

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