>I'm curious. Leaving SEEK alone for the time being, under what circumstances would you use SET RELATION and SET SKIP?

I only used SET SKIP once, that was to find out what it did. I never used it again.

I do use SET RELATION under certain circumstances. One example would be in a VFP native data application where I might use a SELECT to gather PKs for the records I need to deal with but actually do any editing on the tables themselves. I will, under those circumstances, SET RELATION from the cursor to the tables. I have also, though not very often at all, used two remote views to gather data from two different sources and then, rather than using a third view to combine them, related the two cursors using SET RELATION.

>I also found interesting your comment concerning why anyone should use VFP if they are not using SET RELATION / SKIP et al. I have to strongly disagree with you here and ask that you clarify this for the lurkers.

My comment was simply trying to say that if one dismisses the entire DML that VFP takes to the table then they might as well use VB for their database applications.

VFP has only two advantages over other alternative languages for database development those are OOP and its DML.

VFP's real advantage has been its native incorporation of SQL into the base language which allows us to use both the SQL features and the xBase features in combination. It makes no difference if the original record set was obtained using SQL or xBase, once the records set exists something has to be done with those records, the xBase DML in VFP is a major advantage processing rthose records.

If one chooses to NEVER used the xBase DML in VFP, then they probably shoudlkb e using some other language for development. C++, POET, SmallTalk, etc. are better OOP implementations. VB, Delphi, etc are beter windows GUI development tools. VFP only takes a front row seat when you combine all of its features together, ignoring a group of the major features of the tool is not a wise use of the tool.