You're welcome. However, I suggest that you use the index key that Dragan suggested during my period of brain shortage. It's a little shorter, but should produce the same result.

>Tore you never cease to amaze me. The logic would not have occurred to me. Works beautifully and sad to admit I have other applications that I can use that in as well. Thanks so much for this.
>k
>
>>

index on left(chrtran(myfield,'/','') + ' ',25)

>>Replace 25 with the actual length of your field.
>>
>>>I have painted myself in a corner with indexing problem.
>>>I index a field called - myfield -- which contains an alphabetized list of names
>>>aname
>>>bname
>>>cname
>>>
>>>Except in some of these entries there is a backslash at the start of the field
>>>/aname
>>>/bname
>>>/cname
>>>
>>>when I index on myfield it groups the backslashes first followed by the unbackslashes
>>>/aname
>>>/bname
>>>/cname
>>>aname
>>>bname
>>>cname
>>>
>>>
>>>Is there a way to set up the index so the following progression occurs
>>>/aname
>>>aname
>>>/bname
>>>bname
>>>/cname
>>>cname
>>>
>>>index on substr(myfield,2,12) doesn't do it obviously. I need code set up to skip over a /
>>>
>>>I know some work arounds - like setting up a second field to handle the anomalies.
>>>But would prefer a direct solution with a line of brilliant code. Or is this not possible.
>>>
>>>many tnx
>>>k