>>This is quite weird. I'm trying to store a SELECT statement to variable, and VFP 6 SP3 complains with "Command contains unrecognizable phrase/keyword" as soon as the length of my character string hits 256. I Tried the following on an NT4 SP4 and an NT4 SP5 workstation with the same result:
>>
>Rox... yes, the maximium length of a character FIELD is 254... but, a string varible is pretty damn big. Is lcSQL a field by any chance? Do you have a local lcSQL at the beginning of your method?
>
>BOb
This was something that jerked my chain when trying to figure out a quirk with eView, so I was working with this in the command window and a prg with a local lcSQL at the beginning and no field involved. Doesn't really matter at this point, looks like I'm forced to define my view-from-hell in code.

Thanks to everyone for their help & feedback.