Brenda,

If you think nulls are confusing now... just wait. The folloing is from the language overview section in the VFP online documentation.

Visual FoxPro provides support for null values. This support simplifies the task of representing unknown data and makes it easier to work with Microsoft Access or SQL databases that may contain null values.
Null values are:
· Equal to the absence of any value.
· Different than zero, the empty string (""), or blank.
· Sorted ahead of other data.
· Propagated in calculations and most functions.

Null values affect the behavior of commands and functions, logical expressions, and parameters.
Visual FoxPro support for null values complies with ANSI standards and affects any area of the product where values and expressions are used.

Aren't you glad you asked? Seriously, if you are going to deal with null values in your data you need to spend some time learning how they affect VFP behavior. The online documentation is as good a place as any to start. Nothing hard about it, just something you haven't run across before. Hope that helps...

>
>by the way. what is .NULL. could find no reference to it.
>
>thanks - brenda