>If this works in a PRG and not from the form, then the form may be returning a different variable, perhaps padded on the end with spaces; if your PRG arbitrarily sets CNAME="John", then your variable length is 4, but if you are getting the variable from a text box of length 10, then your variable is actually "John ", which your SELECT statement can't find.

Thanks to all of you for your suggestions and help.

I finally got it to work with the foll. code which I put in the init event of a form..

SELECT mytable
SET FILTER TO
alltrim(SUBSTR(ctitle,atc((substr(cname,1)),ctitle),len(cname)))=cname


Jamuna