>Sergey,
>
>Thanks for your response.
>
>Ok, so I was right in my assumption that the first code example is more effective, than the second. This is the example of real life. I've just changed the second code example (written by other programmer) to the first syntax.
>The question is: what's the real difference (suppose, you're doing this in a scan loop) and is it worth to bothering to re-write?
>
>I also found a lot of code like this:
>thetable='blablabla'
>use &thetable.
>
>It's obviously not right and even may cause a syntax problem, if thetable contains embedded spaces by any chance.

Nadya,
In my expirience your first code example would be 10-50 times faster then macrosubstitution.
Also IMHO the code without macrosubstitution is much more readable.