Nancy, thanks for the info I think your right after long hours and a massive headache I came to the same conclusuion. I still however don't like the fact that it corrupts the record even though you should not do it this way. I wonder how many new users of VFP fall into the same trap? It really concerns me that a basic command like begin transaction used (not in the proper way) would corrupt the table buffer.

thanks for your input again.