Sorry for jumping in previously with bad information. That's what I get for trying to answer something quickly before testing it out first<g>.

I played with this some more and found more I don't understand but thought I would pass it along.

When I create a cursor and check dbf() I get something like 60548208.tmp. If I go to windows explorer and look at my \temp directory I the file that was created is named 60548209.tmp. If I try to use or Select From 60548209.tmp I get "File is in use", because the cursor is used exclusive. So FoxPro translates the file name??

>>Hi Cetin,
>>
>>>>weirdness number 2: A Select out of DBF('curTest1') triggers a file blablabla.tmp not found error while an Append from DBF('curTest1') works fine?
>>>
>>
>>>In second "weirdness" you would directly select from curTest1 not dbf("curtest1").
>>
>>I still don't know why the select * from DBF('curTest1') triggers a "blablabla.tmp not found" while the Append from DBF('CurTest1') works fine. I know I can do a select * from curTest1 but why does the DBF() function trigger the error here?
>Mark,
>You're right in that but I really don't understand it too. Also file() returns .f. hence the file is there. It has to do something with file allocation and handles as I could "sense" but that's all. Native fox commands work but not select, file() etc. All I can assure it's a true cursor and exist on disk as any other cursor.
>More to it :

select * from myTable nofilter into cursor myCursor
>use dbf("myCursor") in 0 again alias myCursor1
>copy to (getenv("temp")+"\dellater.tmp")
>select * from (getenv("temp")+"\dellater.tmp")

>So it's not really its path nor extension.
>Cetin