>>>>Your index on the table needs to match the query var as in Upper(trim(word))=Upper(trim(.....
>>>>
>>>>
>>>No, upper(word) should work fine. You don't use TRIM in indexes.
>>
>>Uh, yes I do use trim in indexes and it makes the search extremely fast. Try it before you discount it.
>
>Index expressions should be of fixed length, or otherwise, the length is unpredictable (will be based on whatever is in the first record), since Visual FoxPro will maintain a fixed length.
>
>If you do use trim(), rtrim(), or anything else that makes for a variable-length index, in part of the expression, you must pad the entire index expression to a fixed length, for example, with padr().

I use alltrim() on the index, which makes the index smaller and optimized when searching on allt(upper(thiswhatever))=allt(upper(m.thiswhatever))