Hi Bernard,

>Would you believe that until a few days ago(2) I always used the STR() to convert a number to char before using RPAD(),LPAD().

It took me years to realize that PADR() and PADL() can take any data type. *bg* Just be aware of one thing though, PAD always uses the precision of the number it converts, ie:

 a = 1.0
 ? ">"+PADL(a,5)+"<"  && ">  1.0<"
 a = 1.00
 ? ">"+PADL(a,5)+"<"  && "> 1.00<"
 a = 1.0026
 ? ">"+PADL(a,5)+"<"  && ">1.002<" 

Christof