>Since you can't issue VALIDATE DATABASE RECOVER from within a program, how would you accomplish any DBC - DBF discrepancies? Specifically, adding an index to a table in a DBC and getting an error that the DBC is missing that (structural) index for that table?

This is not provided for because it is not a usual problem. I have been reading your posts concerning this problem, and Sympathise with you (though I can't relate, it has never happened to me).

Instead of trying to program around this anomoly, I think it is time to take a step back and look at how you can start from scratch. Ask yourself some of these questions:

- Does this happen to you with all of the tables/databases you maintain? If you don't have more than one, create some more just for testing. If it happens with other databases, I would first reinstall VFP. If this doesn't help, take a long hard look at oyur network configuration and see if you can change things and test.

- if this is theonly database, rename it. Then rename some of the offending tables. Does this help? If not, recreate your database in a different directory from scratch. Put all of the tables in the new directory too.

The fact is- this should not be happening to you. Since it is, a fundemental part of your programming environment is broken. Rather that trying to change your programming techniques to work around it, it needs to be tracked down and killed.