Bingo - the SQL column is varchar( 254 ) so CASTing it as that works as expected. Thanks very much!

I suppose the lesson is that if VFP can't easily determine a column type then it will default to Memo.

>I would try to wrap expression into CAST(... AS char(50)) or something like that
>
>>I've got a dropdown lookup powered by a CursorAdapter class. In its current state it works fine but I need to make a minor appearance change. Current appearance is in the first image Cbo_CA_1.png.
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>>The underlying CursorAdapter is pulling data from SQL Server. Its .SelectCmd is currently
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>>"SELECT rft_type, rft_desc, rft_pk,rft_historical FROM dbo.ReferralType ORDER BY rft_type"
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>>The Combobox.RowSource is set in code to
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>>this.RowSource = this.zrtc_lookupalias + ".rft_type,rft_desc,rft_pk"
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>>All working fine so far. However, as shown in the first image, there is no visual separation between the rft_type and rft_desc columns in the combobox so it's a bit confusing to the user. For example, the top row says "Agriculture Range use" where "Agriculture" is the rft_type and "Range use" is the rft_desc. The desired enhancement is to add a separator " // " between rft_type and rft_desc when the latter is not blank or NULL. So in this case the first row should read "Agriculture // Range use".
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>>My first thought is to adjust the .SelectCmd as follows:
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>>"SELECT rft_type, CASE WHEN ISNULL( rft_desc, '' ) = '' THEN rft_desc ELSE ' // ' + rft_desc END AS rft_desc, rft_pk,rft_historical FROM dbo.ReferralType ORDER BY rft_type"
>>

>>Basically, if rft_Desc is not NULL or blank, prefix it with " // ". This query works as expected when run directly in SSMS. However, when built into the app, the combobox is showing "Memo" instead of the expected " // Range use" (see the second image Cbo_CA_2.png).
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>>I don't use CursorAdapters often and I'm not expert with them. As far as I can tell its .CursorSchema is neither defined nor used and there is no .DataSource defined.
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>>There is a framework in use, a modified version of VMP5. Thinking it might be an issue of the rft_desc field being wider than it was before, I tested with adding the prefix '' (empty string) so the length would not increase. However, the word "Memo" still appears.
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>>Am I missing something obvious with my .SelectCmd mods or cursoradapters in general, or does it look like this is something happening deep in the framework?