>>Thanks Hilmar. I added a flag field to the original table and copied deleted() into it. That gave me what I needed.
>>btw - set deleted off was in effect. :)
>
>Sure, but I don't think you need a separate field - not in the original table. What I had in mind was simply to separate the query into more than one query, selecting only a single table in the first query. More or less like this:
>
>

>select system, rtp_id, ... deleted() as del1;
>  from rtp_projects;
>  into cursor temp
>select temp.*, r2.rtp_id, ...;
>  from temp r1 join rtp_projects r2 on ...;
>  into cursor temp2
>

Yes Hilmar. I understood that. But I had other reasons for adding the additional field. (different problem, I need to flush some but not all of the deleted records, so I killed 2 birds with one stone.)

Thanks Naomi, Rich, Dragan.