Mark,

>> a SQL command is there that I could not identofy because it had a where clause like: where 1=0. It finally dawns on me [make mental note here] that this is how VFP opens a view when the NoData option is used.

Remote views are handled differently. VFP submits the query to the remote source as a prepared query. The result is that the metadata that describes the result set is returned, which VFP uses to create an empty cursor. It's very easy to see by running an ODBC Tracing.

-Mike