Thanks David. I hadn't thought of that difference between FGETS() and FREAD(). Apparently all I need is the first byte, but your precaution is well received.

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>One clarification since you are dealing with binary data. FREAD() will work, FGETS() may fail to return what you expect because it'll stop at the first instance or chr(10) and/or chr(13) and these are both bytes that may occur within the binary data.
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>>Under 5.0, in the command window, when I issue x=FOPEN('mytable.dbf'), x becomes the file handle of the opened file. When I issue =FREAD(x,100) or FGETS(x,100), I get what I thought would be the first 100 bytes of the table -- the header and then some -- but I can't read it. Is there some trick to this and interpreting what's returned? I'm trying to evaluate the first byte in the header to know if I'm dealing with a usable/readable DBF. All I get is '0c' followed by a bunch of graphic characters, then eventually readable A-z, 0-9 readable text.
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>>Any direction greatly appreciated.