>table or record buffering, but i won't swear to it right now (too far away
>from my copy of vfp to test). i don't like this way either, but if i had a
>unique_id field in the table, i wouldn't have generated it until the user
>wanted to save the record.

Well, if you use an integer unique ID, you're probably set for all but _really_ large DBs. I've got a class that generates unique IDs, and can also revert them out, if necessary. The Default Value in the tables needing it calls a stored procedure in the DB that calls my class, and the revert button in my forms can revert the unique key, if nothing's been added since I generated it....