>Youa re right as I just tested this. Personally I think this is wrong, locals are not supposed to be available outside the routine that creates them.

Yes, it's more like a PRIVATE the way it works here. I guess it depends on how you define "outside the routine" - since reports are of pretty ancient vintage with respect to OOP, I think it's kind of difficult to place them in the scheme of vfp routines. And since there isn't a simple smooth way communicate with them in OOP, I think it's just as well they admit locals so easily. But as soon (if ever) the vfp team updates/objectifies the report writer, then "passing" locals to reports should be tightened up, of course...