>Wow, you are good !! Thanks a lot. And now how do i convert the numeric value 1.9988 back to the string Chr(174)+chr(216)+chr(255)+chr(63)
>

The inverse function, of course!

FUNCTION NumToSingle
LPARAMETER tnNumber
DECLARE RtlMoveMemory IN WIN32API AS RtlCopyDbl ;
	STRING @DestString, ;
	SINGLE @pVoidSource, ;
	INTEGER nLength
LOCAL lcString
lcString = SPACE(4)
=RtlCopyDbl(@lcString, tnNumber,4)
RETURN lcString

>A million tanks.
>
>>That's a parameter type SINGLE, assuming that it's IEEE 754 compliant. As I remember, there's a bug related to the SINGLE parameter return value; Christof Lange and I have proven out the following code to convert a single contained in a VFP string (usually a part of a structure) back to a VFP numeric in straightforward fashion using RtlMoveMemory():
>>
>>

FUNCTION ConvertSINGLEToVFPNum
>>LPARAMETER tcSingle
>>* tcSingle is a 4 byte representation contained in a VFP string
>>DECLARE RtlMoveMemory IN WIN32API AS RtlCopyDbl ;
>>	SINGLE @DestNumeric, ;
>>	STRING @pVoidSource, ;
>>	INTEGER nLength
>>LOCAL lnNum
>>lnNum = 0.000000000000000
>>=RtlCopyDbl(@lnNum, tcSingle, 4)
>>RETURN lnNum