>>Also, in vfp9 SP1 - like in vfp6
>>
>>select ... into cursor tmp
>>index on field tag field
>>index on field2 tag field2 && error
>>
>>You can create one and only one index
>>
>>vfp9 SP2
>>
>>select ... into cursor tmp
>>index on field tag field
>>index on field2 tag field2 && no error
>>
>>You can create more than one index
>>
>>If you use into cursor readwrite you can create more than one index in vfp9 SP2
>
>This was so even in 2.6 - the first is a readonly cursor, on which you can have one tag. For more than one, you need readwrite. There was a trick, IIRC, to use the former AGAIN in a different workarea and index it there, as it became readwrite then.
>
>But actually the alter table issue is related to the way Fox operates the long field names. It requires a dbc to maintain them. As long as you don't want to change them, the names are held in some internal structure in memory and all is fine. If you want to change the structure and have long names, you need a dbc and a simple cursor doesn't belong to one, hence it's a no go.

That was my guess as well (albeit uneducated). See my earlier messages to Gregory/Peter
Which feeds my reluctance to create local cursors with those elegant one line sql statements even more.
Before it was just defensive instinct, this puts some reasoning behind it :)