>>>>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

Thanks Cetin. I will do some more testing today. Normally I have to allow for a possible difference in upper or lower case, but for this, I know the exact case of the phrase because it comes from a single source.