>>>If my primary key is an unintelligent key that's an integer type, I can use only 4 places. What if I have more than 9,999 records in the table? Am I missing something fundamental?
>>>
>>>Thanks.
>>
>>While an integer is stored in only 4 bytes in a file... it actually has a range of +/-2 billion and change. So, you can store 2345678 (etc) in an iteger field.
>>
>>BOb
>
>Is it using values other than numbers? How does it make it unique? SHould I just trust that it will work and not wonder why?

Hi Jane,

PMFJI, but it is using only numbers. A signed integer takes up only four bytes of memory. As such, in their normal format, they're not easily recognizable in terms of value. However, VFP will display them properly as integers.

FWIW, the information is stored in a low-byte to high-byte format. Each byte contains a value between 0 and 255 which is used to comprise the entire value.