>>>I have data, mainly the foxaudit log, which convert into xml just fine but don't convert back to a curso with out an parse error (invalid character)
>>>
>>>how does one handle that?? can I use a strtran() or do I need to use the url conversion routin from rick strahl???
>>
>>You may have binaries in your memos, which should either be escaped in CDATA[] blocks, or converted into base 64. The simplest way is to make your cursors, that you export into XML, having NOCPTRAN on each field which may contain binaries. That forces VFP (since 7.0) to export memos as base 64.
>>
>>There may be other causes for this, though; the one above was my first and only.
>
>how do you specify NOCPTRAN in modi memo on an existing table with hundreds of thousands of records?

Hack the table? Create two empty copies of it, then modify one, and see which byte in the header has changed - specifically, in the 32 bytes describing that column. Then (backup first and) apply the same change to the big table. I expect a single byte somewhere in there.