Yes, that seems to be the only solution.

>You can import into an intermediate cursor with proper field size
>
>>I import from a text file with APPEND FROM TestFile.txt SDF.
>>
>>This function uses the length of the fields to determine the fields how they are imported. Instead of putting 10 characters into my field, it places additional two characters from the next field, because VFP assumes the field width to be 12 instead of 10.
>>
>>>VFP stores numeric(N) data type in a table as a string. As result it has to reserve 1 additional position for a sign and one for a decimal point.
>>>