>I can only guess. Maybe it's because Adel() alone is not sufficient, you must re-dimension the array afterwards.

It does what it does - deletes elements and shifts down all the elements above, initializing the last element/row of the array to .f. ... and now it's up to the programmer to decide what to do with that. Redimensioning to lose those trailing elements is one option; keeping a variable with last usable element/row is another (in cases when we may expect an ains() soon, this avoids multiple redimensioning); checking for element type is yet another. The 2nd option, I think, is the reason why adel() and ains() don't automatically redimension the array - it takes some time to do so, and it may actually be redundant.

Sometimes I wonder why Fox does some things and then the answer "because it was faster that way on a 286" pops up.