>I am tring to create a cursor by code in the load method of the form
>
> select * from consultas.dbf into cursor consultas readwrite
>
>message = Alias name already in use !
>
>If I change to
>
>select * from consultas.dbf into cursor consultas_B readwrite,
>
>then I can create it
>
>Is it not possible to have a cursor with the same name of the table as I do in DE interactive cursor creation ?

Perhaps you can open the table first, with another name. You might try it, although I don't see the advantage.

Let's say you give the cursor a different name; what happens is this:

select * from Consultas into cursor TmpConsultas readwrite

Somewhere in the process of creating the cursor, Visual FoxPro will also automatically open the table. If you later check open tables (for example, with the SET command), you will see two aliases: Consultas (the table) and TmpConsultas (the cursor).

This approach, used by Visual FoxPro, has both advantages and disadvantages.

The main advantage is speed. Once the table is open, selecting other data from this table will be much faster.

The disadvantage is that the table may remain open. The programmer should be aware of this. By the way, this is normally not a big problem if your form has a private DataEnvironment (the recommended setting, but not the default): when you close the form, all its oopen aliases (tables or cursors) will also be closed.