>Exctract 4 what? the total record count of the cursor? _TALLY will give that to you.
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>>thanks that works insofar as it gives me an inventory of the data and how many of each record has the same data
>>so one result was as follows
>>1 with 1010
>>1 with 1014
>>2 with 1019
>>2 with 1031
>>how would i simply extract 4 out of this and hold it as a variable?

Thanks craig - that was the missing part of the equation. great stuff. k