You're welcome.

>this code worked beautifully. you are the man. thank you so much
>
>
>>It's not the same. The characters fields are enclosed in double quotes in the file. IOW, you'll get "20080101" instead of 20080101.
>>
>>Also you could use DTOS() to convert a date to YYYYMMDD string.
>>
>>>
>>>i did it this way
>>>

>>>* 08.26.2009 df. Fix the date fields.
>>>IF USED('tcprsys')
>>>	SELECT tcprsys
>>>	USE
>>>ENDIF 
>>>SELECT * , ;
>>>	SUBSTR(DTOC(s_weekend),7,4) + SUBSTR(DTOC(s_weekend),1,2) + SUBSTR(DTOC(s_weekend),4,2) as weekend, ;
>>>	SUBSTR(DTOC(s_chk_date),7,4) + SUBSTR(DTOC(s_chk_date),1,2) + SUBSTR(DTOC(s_chk_date),4,2) as chkdate ;	
>>>	FROM prsys INTO CURSOR tcprsys readwrite
>>>
>>>SELECT tcprsys
>>>COPY TO (ALLTRIM((pathtxt) + "dnsys" + (gc_accno) + ".DAT")) ;
>>>	FIELDS s_co_code, s_payperio, WEEKEND,  ;
>>>	s_city, s_state, s_zip, s_owner, CHKDATE  ;
>>>	FOR (gc_accno = s_co_code) ;
>>>	TYPE DELIMITED
>>>
>>

>>>
>>>
>>>>Looks like VFP exports dates differently than Fox 2.x. I guess you'll have to postprocess the file. Something like
>>>>

>>>>SET DATE YMD
>>>>SET MARK TO "|"    && A character that is not presented in the data
>>>>
>>>>COPY TO (lcFileName) DELIMITED 
>>>>STRTOFILE(CHRTRAN(FILETOSTR(lcFileName), "|", ""), lcFileName)
>>>>SET MARK TO
>>>>* Restore SET DATE
>>>>...
>>>>

>>>>
>>>>>SELECT prsys
>>>>>COPY TO (ALLTRIM((pathtxt) + "dnsys" + (gc_accno) + ".DAT"));
>>>>> FOR (gc_accno = s_co_code);
>>>>> TYPE DELIMITED
>>>>>