>thanks for the clarification thomas. that is in fact what i had tried however
>vfp underlines the sentence (ie syntax wrong)

for lnRun = 1 to alines(laLines, FileToStr("c:\mydir\m.txt")

alines returns number of lines. The syntax of the for next is FOR x = 1 to y ... NEXT x

>

>for lnRun to alines(laLines, FileToStr("c:\mydir\m.txt"))
>

>is there an alternative?
>
>thanks
>k
>
>>

lcErg = ""
>>for lnRun to alines(laLines, FileToStr("c:\mydir\m.txt"))
>>    If !Empty(laLines[m.lnRun])
>>       lcErg = m.lcErg + laLines[m.lnRun]
>>    endif
>>next
>>= StrToFile(m.lcErg, "c:\mydir\m_Clean.txt")

>>
>>Overwriting with the same name might get you into other troubles,
>>so I prefer to keep original file unchanged.
>>
>>HTH
>>
>>thomas