>>Jim,
>>
>>>FROM ves!master2 LEFT OUTER JOIN arcadr01 ;
>>ON Master2.custno + Master2.cshipno = Arcadr01.custno + Arcadr01.cshipno
>>
>>this only applies if all fields are caracter. If they're numeric you can get unexpected results. If all the mentioned fields are indexed it's maybe better to use
>>
>>FROM ves!master2 LEFT OUTER JOIN arcadr01;
>>LEFT OUTER JOIN ves!master2 ;
>>ON Master2.cshipno = Arcadr01.cshipno AND Master2.custno = Arcadr01.custno ;
>
>
>They were character! and yes having 938484 + 1 would be funny. Had the vaues been numeric I would have done a str() function and doen the index to match.

In a numeric case, I might look at the BINTOC() and CTOBIN() functions for creating the indexes. Should be more compact and faster.