Sorry, been away for a week.

Turns out that it's an intermittent problem. I can't seem to find any consistancy to when it will or will not work. Finally changed computers, so hopefully the problem will disappear.

>I tried it...it worked for me...how are you opening your lnHandle file? With what read/write privileges?
>
>How does it crash?
>
>
>>Please ignore the last message. Accidentally hit "send".
>>
>>>> DO WHILE lcLine<>'!CUST' + chr(9) AND !FEOF(lnHandle)
>>
>> **************************************
>> *** This sequence will work just fine
>>
>> * lcLine = ''
>> * lcChar = ' '
>> * DO WHILE lcChar<>chr(13) AND !FEOF(lnHandle)
>> * lcChar = FREAD(lnHandle,1)
>> * IF lcChar<>chr(13) AND lcChar<>chr(10)
>> * lcLine = lcLine + lcChar
>> * ENDIF
>> * ENDDO
>>
>> **************************************
>> *** but this crashes when it tries to read the line
>> *** that starts with "!CUST"+chr(9)
>>
>> lcLine = FGETS(lnHandle,999)
>>
>> **************************************
>> = FPUTS(lnHandle2,lcLine)
>> ? lcLine
>> ENDDO
>>
>>What's the difference?