George,

You beat me to it, I was thinking the same thing ;). So I tested while you posted. Here is an example:

#DEFINE AS_DEFINE CHR(13)+CHR(13)
cAsVar = CHR(13)+CHR(13)

lnstart = SECONDS()
? 'Test with straight code'
FOR N = 1 TO 100000
	x = CHR(13)+CHR(13)
ENDFOR
lnstop = SECONDS()
? lnstop - lnstart

lnstart = SECONDS()
? 'Test as a var'
FOR N = 1 TO 100000
	x = cAsVar
ENDFOR
lnstop = SECONDS()
? lnstop - lnstart

lnstart = SECONDS()
? 'Test as define'
FOR N = 1 TO 100000
	x = AS_DEFINE
ENDFOR
lnstop = SECONDS()
? lnstop - lnstart

>>George,
>>
>>Thanks for this suggestion. I'm thinking about several additional #define at the top of my program and also local variables in aparser. That's a good point.
>>
>>BTW, now it runs in ~0.1 sec.
>>
>Well, don't use any functions in those #DEFINES, because they'll be evaluated at run time. Anything calling either CHR() or SPACE() should be a local.