sorry dragan - i misread. that is a really good question. I am using a number of tables and that could very well be the source of the problem. I will run through all and see what i find. a simple fix in that case.

many thanks
k

>>In the following command (fln refers to file name)
>>

>>if fln = " " 
>>fln = "Temp"
>>endif
>>

>>
>>i get this error message
>>
>>Operator/operand type mismatch
>>
>>I cannot find the point in my programming at which this variable becomes a numeric reference - but nonetheless Is there a command line i can run immediately before to check if fln is text variable, if not then change it to a text variable before the error message comes up.
>
>Is there a field with that name in the current alias?