Justok,

The m. is an alias to remove confusion between a memory variable and a table field with the same name. VFP will always use the field when this happens, the m. makes VFP use the memvar. (if you want to see that this is true try USE SomeTable ALIAS m and see the error that you get).

Variables are by default private in VFP. That means if you assign a value to a new var it will be private. Privates are visible to the routine that created them and all routines below it in the calling stack. LOCALs can only be created through the declaration (like publics Ugghhhh). Locals are ONLY visible to the routine that created them and are hidden from any routines below or above it.