>>suggestions on how to get around this -- i.e. how to strip off any invisible >characters at the end of file without actually opening the file up in edit >mode.
>
>Try to use low-level functions...


Thanks - I did and it works fine

** open with read & write
xhandle=fopen("xy1.txt",2)
lcgetar=adir(temparray,"xy1.txt")
lngetsz=temparray[1,2]
lnnewsize=lngetsz-1
=FCHSIZE(xhandle,lnnewsize)
=fclose(xhandle)