>When I do a manual import from a DATt file I am able to import it withall its columns separated fine
>
>But when I do an append from VFP into an existing file all I get is all the data in 1 field
>
>This is my code
>
>APPEND FROM g:\consignor\lastmanifest\consiga.dat TYPE sdf
>
>What should I be doing?

There is no standard for a dat file, since dat is only short for Data. We need to know what character separates the fields, and whether there are any characters surrounding character fields. Unless each record is on a new line, we also need to know which character separates the records. Please copy a few lines from the dat file, and post them here.