>I thought the date problem I was having was restricted to FPW. But try this in a VFP program
>

>Test.prg
>set date mdy
>x= {1/8/1998}
>? month(x) && => 1
>set date ymd
>x= {1998/8/1}
>? month(x) && => 0
>set date dmy
>x= {1/8/1998}
>? month(x) && => 1
>
>x= {^1998/08/01}
>? month(x) && => 8
>set date mdy
>* EOF

>
>Pretty awful.

What version of VFP? I just installed VFP 6 and no longer have the earlier versions installed. VFP 6 give an ambiguous date error on all the examples you gave.