>>>I'm upgrading a VFP7 app to VFP9. I understand that all non-agregate fields should be included in the GROUP BY clause. Am I mistaken to assume that the primary group should be listed first? If the other fields are included only to make the select work, does it matter whatorder they are listed in?
>>>
>>>Is there a downside to listing many fields in the GROUP BY clause?
>>>
>>>Is there a better (or proper) way to handle this?
>>>
>>>Thanks in advance for any help clarifying.
>>
>>Yes, primary group should be listed first. For the rest you may use some aggregate function such as min (max) if you don't want to list these fields in the GROUP BY, e.g.
>>

>>select myGroupField, max(myOtherField) as myOtherField, etc. .... group by 1

>
>Here is an example of one of our selects that we are using to create a report. It just seems that there would have to be some downside to including all these fields on the GROUP BY clause.
>
>Am I missing a proper way to accomodate this (again)?
>
>

>SELECT DISTINCT shp_air.booking_no, cntnr.qnty, shp_air.vessel_txt, shp_air.pier, shp_air.voyage, ;
>                shp_air.name_depc, shp_air.depart, shp_air.eta_dest_t, shp_air.fldate1, shp_air.dest_port, ;
>		shp_air.pier_tm, shp_air.eta_dest_d, shp_air.pier_dt, lots.order_date, ;
>		lots.shipnm, lots.shipattn, lots.shipphn, lots.shipfax, lots.nat_memo, lots.comments, ;
>		lots.shpord_nos, lots.pieces, lots.unit_wt, lots.wt_tot, lots.unit_vol, lots.vol_tot, ;
>		lots.consname, lots.consphn, lots.consfax, lots.consattn, lots.cons_acct, lots.cont_fld, ;
>		lots.agt_o_name, lots.agt_d_name, lots.orig_ctyst, lots.orig_cntry, lots.ff_agent, lots.sig_off, ;
>		hwb_chg.chg3_desc, hwb_chg.chg3_pp, hwb_chg.per3, lots.shp_air_id, LOTS.HWBNO_XTND, ;
>		hwb_chg.chg4_desc, hwb_chg.chg4_pp, hwb_chg.per4, ;
>		hwb_chg.chg5_desc, hwb_chg.chg5_pp, hwb_chg.per5, ;
>		hwb_chg.chg6_desc, hwb_chg.chg6_pp, hwb_chg.per6, ;
>		hwb_chg.chg7_desc, hwb_chg.chg7_pp, hwb_chg.per7, ;
>		hwb_chg.chg8_desc, hwb_chg.chg8_pp, hwb_chg.per8, ;
>		lots.ultd_eta_d, lots.ultd_eta_t, lots.ultd_ctyst, lots.dlvry_dt, lots.ultd_cntry  ;
>	FROM shp_air, lots, cntnr, hwb_chg ;
>	WHERE lots.lots_id = ret_val ;
>		AND lots.lots_id = hwb_chg.lots_id ;
>		AND shp_air.shp_air_id = lots.shp_air_id ;
>		AND cntnr.shp_air_id = shp_air.shp_air_id ;
>	GROUP BY lots.hwbno_xtnd ;
>	INTO CURSOR bookingrpt
>

Why do you need to use DISTINCT and GROUP BY in the same query? It looks to me that this particular select would work without GROUP BY. Otherwise you may go with Mike's suggestion to use derived table to join. I actually wanted originally to suggest this as well and even started to write it in my answer but then thought - what would be the field to join?