>I disagree. Effecient may be translated to mean effecient for the programmer. In that case the ASCAN() would be "more effecient" because the programmer can program faster. Of course there are some assumptions here also, such as that the array contains uniquely identifiable values not only within a column but also within the entire array if it is mulitdimensional.

I meant by "most efficient" in reference to the search. Simply put, on an ordered, single dimensioned array of any significant size, a binary search will always be more efficient than ASCAN().

However, the question was meant to identify a basic coding skill rather than knowledge of VFP specifically. I'd consider the ability to identify the problem, and write a binary search in response more significant than knowledge of the VFP function. It demonstrates that the person has the basic knowledge and skills to solve problems.

As a side note, you cannot use ASCAN() to implement a "soft-search", you can do this with a binary search.