works like a charm. Thanks, Sergey.

>Try
>

>dVal_date = CAST(aCondition[nCond_row,3] AS datetime)
>

>>
>>I have a program where I save a date or datetime, depending on what field they pick. Later, the user can go back in and edit that field variable they saved. But I can not seem to get CTOT() or CTOD() to work correctly with the variable after I get it from the same table, where it is saved as a character string.
>>

>> dVal_date = CTOT(SUBSTR(aCondition[nCond_row,3], AT("(", aCondition[nCond_row,3]) + 2, nDate_width + 12))
>>

>>so I tried,
>>

>>  lcstring = SUBSTR(aCondition[nCond_row,3], AT("(", aCondition[nCond_row,3]) + 2, nDate_width + 12)
>>  lcstring = strtran(lcstring, ["])
>>  dVal_date = CTOT(lcstring)
>>

>>
>>dVal_date keeps saying { // :: }, not the correct time.
>>The value in aCondition[nCond_row,3] is "01/01/2001 12:00 AM"
>>
>>Can someone point me to my problem?
>>
>>TIA
>>Beth