Apologies Tamar - slipped on my tongue.
(tnx craig).

k

>Tamar is a her.
>
>>tnx Al
>>I was trying to get this done in a one line command as tamar had done with his seek() ex..
>>the locate does not work as shown in below ex. --- worth the try thanks for that.
>>

>>IF locate ("H", "allocate", "collterm")       
>> **** test for left letter h in field collterm in database allocate
>>endif
>>