Bill,
Let's assume there is a unique key, UniqKey,
or some other way of positively identifying which
records in table1 are not in table2.
Try this:

select * from table1 ;
where UniqKey not in ;
(select UniqKey from table2) ;
into cursor toappend
select table2
append from dbf('toappend')

Good Luck,
Dore

> have two identical tables in different directories. The
>data in the first table changes monthly and I will update
>the second table from it. I used a set relation statement,
>replace field data, etc. I also want to append records from the
>first table to the second table when there is no matching
>record in the second. I'm considerin a scan..endscand with
>an if statement based on a seek on the indexed field. Is
>there a better way? Some kind of SQL update maybe?