>Hi David ----
>
>>In addition to other coments, APPEND BLANK has a performance penalty; the index(es) have to be updated twice. INSERT INTO does a single index update, which means it's *about* twice as fast.
>>Unfortunately there's no INSERT INTO FROM NAME objectname, which would be nice since they introduced SCATTER NAME objectname.
>
>Ahhh, but there is a GATHER NAME :-)
>Thats the compliment to SCATTER NAME.

That's right, and that's what I use from time to time. Now that Jim B has explained that APPEND BLANK/GATHER NAME has no performance penalty in a buffered environment I'm a much happier little beaver.