>The concept of deletion not physically removing a record from the table until a PACK occurs is a carryover from the original xBASE language and table construct; removing it would alter backwards compatibility, and would render the RECALL statement useless.

Yes thats true enough. Maybe they should have had a new type of deleted flag and call it destroy. Then records marked for deletion could be recalled but records marked as having been destroyed could never be recalled.

Anyway I am digressing. I guess I will learn to love things as they are:)