David,
>I tried this out on a table with 1100 rows, a string about 20 chars. The version from Frank did it in 3 seconds, yours did it in 2. This is adequate for my purposes, for now. Do you have the C version?

Yes, but this I cannot share.
I was allowed to put the faster vfp version into public domain, but not the C version
- both were developed for the same customer and customer is always right.

sorry

thomas