Yossi,

>It doesn't make any difference.

I don't know what's wrong then, other than using seriously outdated techniques compared to the much better alternatives we have in VFP. You may be hitting a bug in the @SAY technology which should have been abandoned when VFP3 shipped.

>Obviously in my code the SET CENT is in the same data session.

It wasn't absolutely clear from the code you posted that the SET was all happening within the same data session. I've seen code samples posted like yours and later on in the thread found out that there was quite a bit of "significant intervening code" that was left out of the original post. That's why I pointed out the possible scoping issue.

You have my sympathies if you are stuck writing FPx2.6 type code, but you really should stop using it in VFP.