>hmm so I looked at your code I always read buffering was to protect data during updating never quite got that part .Also i dont really follow your save code....nor do i trust mine

I'll copy the save code again, for reference, and add some more comments.

* "Save" button
if not TableUpdate()
  local laError[1]
  aerror(laError)
  MessageBox("Error code: " + trans(laError(1)) + " - Error message: " + laError(2), 16, "Error saving data")
endif

TableUpdate() will try to save the record. It will return .T. if you can save, .F. if you can't. Here is a simpler version:

if not TableUpdate()
  MessageBox("Can't save for some reason.")
endif

However, you want to give the user more specific information about what went wrong. Some reasons why a TableUpdate() can fail is because a trigger failed (due to referential integrity, or some other rule that doesn't allow you to save changes), because the table is read-only, a field-level rule or a record-level rule is violated, you try to insert duplicate data (duplicate according to a primary or candidate index), and several others more.

If an error occurs, you collect information, with the function aerror(). The function collects information about the error to an array, which I called laError. This array has 5 elements, but only the first two are interesting in most cases: the error number, and the error message. This information is then shown as an error message, with the function MessageBox().

HTH,

Hilmar.