Fred & David,

I tested them again and again, and still had this error. Definitely is something wrong here :( I'm so tired today and lost...

This is my final test: (in a program test.prg) I hardcoded all values and still have a problem.

lcWhere='' && Pick up geography
lcState='MA' && Selected state

lcIssueMonth='01'
lcIssueYear='00'
lcDBF1='MASAL00'
lcDBF2='MASAL99'

lcBeginWeek='200001'
lcEndWeek=  '200004'

OutPutDir='J:\REDP\Output\MTD\' && OutPut Directory
lcTempTable=OutPutDir + 'PrntMTD'

lcWhere=lcWhere+iif(empty(lcWhere),"",[ and ])+[aa.CCODE+aa.TOWN=bb.County+bb.TOWN]

lcWhere2=strtran(lcWhere,'aa.','cc.')
lcWhere2=strtran(lcWhere2,'bb.','dd.')
*=messagebox(lcWhere+' '+lcWhere2)
set talk on
set talk window

select aa.*, lcIssueMonth as issuenum, " " as ntflag, ;
between(iif(val(extryear)<10,'20','19')+extryear+extrweek, lcBeginWeek, lcEndWeek) as currmnth,;
	    bb.fullname as FName, .t. as recap ;	    
		from  &lcDBF1 aa, Towns bb;
		where &lcWhere and ;
		iif(val(extryear)<10,"20","19")+extryear+extrweek<=lcEndweek;
		and aa.price >= 1000 and !deleted() ;
		into table (lcTempTable)


	

	select aa.*, lcIssueMonth as issuenum, " " as ntflag, .f. as currmnth,;
		bb.fullname as FName, .f. as recap ;
		from  &lcDBF1 aa, Towns bb;
		where &lcWhere ;
		and between(iif(val(extryear)<10,"20","19")+extryear+extrweek, lcBeginWeek, lcEndweek) ;
		and aa.price >= 1000 and !deleted() ;
		union;
		select cc.*, lcIssueMonth as issuenum, " " as ntflag, .f. as currmnth,;
		dd.fullname as FName, .f. as recap ;
		from  &lcDBF2 cc, Towns dd;
		where &lcWhere2 ;
		and between(iif(val(extryear)<10,"20","19")+extryear+extrweek, lcBeginWeek, lcEndweek) ;
		and cc.price >= 1000 and !deleted() ;		
		into table (lcTempTable)

>>
>>I just singled out substr(), any string function can fail in this way under VFP5.
>>
>>I'll bet the error is here:
>>
>>lcSourceTbl=lcState+"SAL"+right(lcYear,2)
>>
>>What is the value of lcYear when the code tries to run?
>>
>>>I'm sure, I didn't do such a thing!!!! :)
>>>This is my lcWhere expression: (from debugger)
>>>ccode='13' and aa.ccode+aa.town=bb.County+bb.town
>>>
>>>No substr at all...
>
>David,
>
>RIGHT() seems to work OK, even when the string is empty. (VFP5/TALK ON) Not sure about OTHER string commands...