If you don't have or want an index, LOCATE can help:

SELECT Allocate
LOCATE FOR LEFT( Allocate.CollTerm, 1 ) == "H"

IF FOUND( "Allocate" )
... etc.

ELSE
... the record pointer is moved to EOF()

ENDIF

>Sorry my mistake - obviously scan will not work - I was trying to bypass indexing issue - but in the current context there is no way to complete scan processing and exit. So back to seek(). If I open the database before hand and index then issue your command lines it works but I thought your intention was to eliminate the need for activating the index (order) and opening the database. At any rate I have found an easy way to access the information I need - I am just curious in future how I would get this to work.
>
>>HI Tamar
>>I like your option for a quick search but am not having success with it - can you tell me what i'm doing wrong.
>>on page 26 you write
>>

>>IF SEEK("      10313", "Orders", "OrderDate")    
>>* Process records for this date 
>>ENDIF
>>

>>
>>I have a database with one record - I am trying to test for a name starting with H in a field called collterm in a db called allocate.
>>since it's not indexed I used scan which should have same result showing up- neither scan nor seek yield the correct result.
>>

>>IF scan("H", "Allocate", "Collterm")      
>>*** letter found or not
>>ENDIF 
>>

>>
>>tnx for any help on this.
>>
>>k
>>
>>>>Yes I tried both and they both work. I am not familiar with padr and it's missing from my vfp help. is it pad right?
>>>
>>>Karen - if you're not familiar with PADR(), there may be other additions you missed along the way. You might find my paper http://www.tomorrowssolutionsllc.com/Conference%20Sessions/We%20Used%20to%20Do%20it%20That%20Way%20But.pdf useful.
>>>
>>>Tamar