Christof,

The significance here is whether or not the API is putting a result into one of the arguments. If it is, as GetSystemTime does, then you have to pass a reference to the buffer.

>The definition doesn't really matter, but how you call the API function does matter. When you pass a string by reference, VFP passes a pointer to the actual string, when you pass it by value, it passes a pointer to a copy of the string. The following code sample illustrates this:
>

>Declare Integer GetSystemTime in Win32Api String
>lcBuffer = Space(255)
>GetSystemTime(lcBuffer)
>? ">",lcBuffer,"<"         && empty string
>GetSystemTime(@lcBuffer)
>? ">",lcBuffer,"<"         && SYSTEMTIME strucutre 

>Christof