Thanks Al - it was the syntax I was having problem with -you had mentioned adding it to the final command thus

INTO CURSOR Email READWRITE 

which didn't work for me. - I was wondering if that was what you meant.

k

>READWRITE makes the Email cursor (the result of the SELECT query) act like a table. You can add or delete rows, change the existing contents etc. If you don't include READWRITE the cursor is read-only.
>
>>thanks again Al. Works very smoothly now.
>>
>>re the read write - not quite there yet, are you saying this would open the query table and allow input?
>>INTO CURSOR Email readwrite &&& not working ---- is that what you meant??
>>
>>k
>>
>>>>I am getting an error read on the second line - anyone know why? tnx k
>>>>

>>>>CREATE CURSOR email (email C(40))
>>>>INSERT INTO Email (Email)     &&&  syntax error
>>>>select email from myDbf1 ;
>>>>UNION ;
>>>>SELECT email from myDBF2;
>>>>UNION ;
>>>>SELECT email from myDBF3;
>>>>UNION ;
>>>>SELECT email from myDBF4
>>>>

>>>>>
>>>>>UNION eliminates duplicates so the resulting cursor will have all unique emails from your 4 DBFs.
>>>
>>>There are only supposed to be 2 commands in what you've shown; there should be a semicolon at the end of the 2nd line.
>>>
>>>You don't have to create the cursor in advance - a SQL SELECT can do it for you:
>>>

>>>SELECT email from myDBF1 ;
>>>UNION ;
>>>SELECT email from myDBF2 ;
>>>UNION ;
>>>SELECT email from myDBF3 ;
>>>UNION ;
>>>SELECT email from myDBF4 ;
>>>INTO CURSOR Email
>>>* if you need a read-write cursor you can add READWRITE to the very end of the above command
>>>