>It has nothing to do with 'format option 3'. When you do not provide XML schema, XMLTOXCURSOR() has to guess types of the fields based on the values in them. IOW, only XML schema can carry over accurate information about original field types/sizes.

Right, I somehow thought the format parameter implied the lack of schema. So far,

CURSORTOXML("myalias", "m.foo",3,0,0,"1")

seems to produce a thinner XML and have a schema as well. Memos are enclosed between quotation marks, and quotation marks inside memos are escaped HTML-style. May be a better way than the regular format 1, specially as long field names aren't written twice per record, and if it won't be read by a person.