Jim,

> This "proves" that the so-called VFP 'optimization' is a figment of the imagination

This is a completely false statement. If you use function calls in place of memvars in the logical expression, you will in fact be able to trace the execution and see that VFP will do it's own optimization. I'd point you back at the code I posted earlier in the thread as a starting point. The expression in that code was purposely constructed to be non-optimizeable to show that VFP correctly understood the operatir precedence. If you run ? t1() or t2() and trace it the t2() function WILL NOT BE CALLED, the optimizer knows that calling it can not change the end result, so it doesn't call it.