>Just out of idle curiosity, why not STRTRAN(lcRetVal,' ','')

lcString = "a" + SPACE(4) + "a"
lcString = STRTRAN(lcString, SPACE(2), SPACE(1))
? lcString && This prints "a**a", where * is a blank

lcString = "a" + SPACE(4) + "a"
lcString = STRTRAN(lcString, SPACE(1), "") && Remove all blanks
? lcString && This prints "aa"

What I need to print out is "a*a", where * is a blank.