>this is my actual line of code
>
>my field is a character field and it comes from a harris PBX like this
>990501
>so if i apply this line of code to 990501 like such
>
>substr(view1.strtdate,3,2) + "/" + substr(view1.strtdate,5,2) + "/" + substr(view1.strtdate,1,2)
>
>i get 05-01-99
>i need to get May-01-99

Right. So if you do this:

dVar = CTOD(substr(view1.strtdate,3,2) + "/" + substr(view1.strtdate,5,2) + "/" + substr(view1.strtdate,1,2))
YourNewString = CMONTH(dVar)+'-'+substr(view1.strtdate,5,2)+'-'+substr(view1.strtdate,1,2)

You should get:

May-01-99 in the variable YourNewString.