>I need to check if a file c:\global\*.doc exists - what is the correct code for this?

If you know the particular filename use file(). If you want to check if any *.doc exists, you might use adir. adir builds an array filled with all matching *.doc, which could be a big array if you have many files. IMO the best way is

llFound = !empty(sys(2000,"c:\global\*.doc"))

That will tell you if there are any *.doc files. The issue is, what do you plan to do next? If you want to process all *.docs, the array may help. Or sys(2000) could be used to check for a file and then to process the remaining. That works really well and there is no upfront time spent building a potentially huge array.

lcFile=sys(2000,"c:\global\*.doc")
DO WHILE !EMPTY(m.lcFile)
  *do something with m.lcFile
  *get the next file - that's what the ,1 is for.
  lcFile=SYS(2000,"c:\global\*.doc",1)
ENDDO