>>>Assuming a memo field in a cursor is HUGE, and I want to look for a string: 'my string' what would be the fastest and least memory hog way of doing that? I think for sure that $ is not it... is alines() better? It won't be an exact match, in other words, I need to see if 'my string' is in there, but it may be in there as 'this is my string.' etc...
>>>
>>>I don't need to know where in the memo field it is, just whether it is there or not.
>>
>>
>>I did some testing now (I don't know how representative they are):
>>
>>

>>CLEAR
>>CREATE CURSOR crsTest (MyMemo M)
>>APPEND BLANK
>>REPLACE MyMemo WITH REPLICATE([A],16000000)+[ My String]
>>
>>m1 = SECONDS()
>>AT([My String], MyMemo)
>>? [AT], SECONDS()-m1                  && 0.047
>>
>>m1 = SECONDS()
>>RAT([My String], MyMemo)
>>? [RAT], SECONDS()-m1                 && 0.053
>>
>>m1 = SECONDS()
>>aaa = [My String] $ MyMemo
>>? [$], SECONDS()-m1                   && 0.045
>>
>>m1 = SECONDS()
>>aaa = OCCURS([My String], MyMemo)
>>? [OCCURS], SECONDS()-m1              && 0.284
>>
>>m1 = SECONDS()
>>SELECT * FROM crsTest WHERE MyMemo LIKE [%My String%] INTO CURSOR aaaa
>>? [SELECT +LIKE], SECONDS()-m1        && 0.980
>>

>
>I just tested this a few times and switched the order around. It appears you are correct. While the time changes depending on whether it is first, 2nd, 3rd, etc in the order (OCCURS() versus $ etc), $ does seem to be consistently the fastest.

Tracy,
In my tests $ was not the fastest (but it may be on different conditions, machines). at() and rat() were the fastest for me. The differences were almost negligible (I didn't see a difference more than 0.020).
IMHO, using ATC() is better because it provides case insensitivity which is not available with $,like,occurs.
Cetin