With default settings varchar columns retain entered trailing spaces. You'll have to run UPDATE on the varchar column once to trim trailing spaces.

>Sorry it took so long to get back. I've been working in NET recently and had to set my VFP work aside. LEAD is the name of a city like "Tucson". ST_NAME is the name of a roadway project like "Speedway Blvd - Alvernon to Swan". The intent of the index is to do an alpha sort of the records first by the city and then by the project name. With LEAD set to varchar the seemed OK but the second sort broke in the middle and restarted. That is it looked like this:
>
>city1, project1
>city1, project2
>city1, project3
>city1, project1a
>city1, project2a
>
>The city names are all entered from a combobox so they should all be the same. I've been thinking about the padding issue you mentioned but I don't think that explains it. :(
>
>(Although if some were entered when the field was CHAR and some when the field was VARCHAR, that may explain it.) :)
>Thanks