Robert,

I'd just use tables

create cursor SecondAscii ( cText c(250) )
create cursor FirstAscii ( cText c(250) )
append from FirstAscii.txt type sdf
scan
   if ( "search text" $ cText )
      insert into SecondAscii values ( "what to put there" )
   endif
endscan

You could speed the process up if the insert just went ahead and put field values into the table.

>I need to read in a ascii file and do a string search on each line and
>denpending on what is found with the string search, I will write out to another ascii file. The form will be:
>open first ascii file
>open second ascii file
>do while .t.
> read in a line of the first ascii
> if search criteria is met
> write out a line to the second ascii file
> else
> loop
>endif
>endo
>
>I will then do a APPEND FROM to bring the second ascii file into a vfp dbf. Any ideas?