I've just reread Jim Booth's FoxTalk supplement "What's the current work area?" (March 1999) and I'm wondering if my alternate approach is putting me at risk. As I see it, I can either restore my environment each time I change it, or I can choose not to assume anything about the environment. I have chosen the latter, and I believe that he is promoting the former. Actually, I got the feeling that Jim might be promoting both.

To clarify, it's only select areas, indexes, record pointers, etc. that I'm referring to here ... I always restore my "SET" settings.

My typical code looks like: if seek(lcMyVar, "MyTable", "MyTableIndex"), or, if eof("MyTable"), or, REPLACE MyTable.MyVar WITH ..., that is to say ... fully qualified so I don't care if some other routine has changed the select area or the controlling index. If I am rigorous about fully qualifying what I do, am I safe, or is there some case where this approach is not enough.

Bob