Thanks for all your advise. 1)I recalled that in Clipper Programming, it has the flexibility to IGNORE the logically deleted record(as if it was deleted physically). This is good, because one need not to pack (VFP 'packs and reindex' automatically) every time a single record is deleted. Otherwise, it will take a long time to pack and reindex if it is a huge Table. 2) Why isn't the SET DELETE ON setting ignore logically deleted records? Any other ways not to PACK every time a record is deleted and still able to append an existing primary key field??? > Tom, > > While your response certainly is absolutely correct, the situation does beg > the following questions: > > 1) Why isn't there at least an OPTION in VFP to have DELETED primary or > candidate keys treated as non-existent records which can be overwritten > according to the command presently being attempted? > > 2) Why is this simple fact NOT mentioned at all in the discussions > regarding primary keys or candidate keys? [ each of us has to learn this > for ourselves, the hard way] > > Jim N. > > >Alvin > > > >Delete does NOT remove the record from the table -- only PACK will do > that. Just because you cannot see the record does not mean it still does > not exist. You will either have to pack the table first or change the key > value so it is unique. > > > >HTH, > >Tom