>>I am having a problem with a simple select statement and don't know if it is a bug... To verify the simplicity of it, I created a bogus table with two numeric columns N1, N2 both integer.
>>
>>Then I issued
>>
>>select min( N1, N2 ) as tmpfld from tmptable.
>>
>>The error I received was
>>"Function name is missing ),"
>>
>>anyone seen this???
>
>The problem is that the MAX and MIN VFP functions conflict with the SQL ones... I think there is no solution (other than writing an UDF which does the same job) and would like to here about one, if available.

Just write it as an IIF(), a MAX() and MIN() select example:

SELECT IIF(Fld1 > Fld2, Fld1, Fld2) AS MaxFld1Fld2, ;
       IIF(Fld3 > Fld4, Fld4, Fld3) AS MinFld3Fld4 ;
  FROM SomeTable ;
  INTO CURSOR Example