>Hi Dmitry,
>
>>>If I change the 10 in the above REPLICATE with 15, no error.
>>>

>>>REPLICATE(' ',15-LEN(ALLTRIM(REFERENCE)))
>>>

>
>Weird errors can occur in VFP SQL Select when a selected expression has variable length. Basically the first encountered instance sets the size of the result field.
>
>Example: if the first selected ALLTRIM(REFERENCE) length is 10 chars, then
>

REPLICATE(' ',10-LEN(ALLTRIM(REFERENCE)))

yields

REPLICATE(' ',0)

which is a zero-length string.
>
>However, in SQL it appears to generate a one-character result field, presumably because 0 length fields cannot exist. I wonder whether this anomaly is part of the problem, since one character is too short for even one   and to be useful you'd need that result to be long enough for the shortest REFERENCE.
>
>If the code used to work, perhaps that was because shorter REFERENCE is encountered first. Was the resultset ordered?
>
>Increasing to 15 may avoid the issue because now the result field is at least 6*5=30 chars rather than an unexpected 1 character.
>
>If this is the explanation, then ordering the resultset or

PADR(REPLICATE(' ',10-LEN(ALLTRIM(REFERENCE))),60)

should prevent the issue.

Hi John,
The result is not ordered.
Your suggestion with the PADR() around the REPLICATE, gives the same error. The number (10 or 15) has to match the field length.