>Can I assume from these replies that there is no operation within VFP that equates to modi struc or do the 3rd party tools just do it better??

The reason to go with 3rd party solution is the cost of the 3rd party products vs. the time it takes to write this stuff by yourself to work properly
other than that everything can be done using VFP SQL commands (which is what 3rd party tools use)

Arnon