>Thanks for your response. If this is normal behavior, what is noclear used for? I do not doubt you I am just curious and eager to learn. I think the sleep() API might be over my head since I have no clue what it is. Thanks again
>Carl


There's probably (certainly??) a better way to do this in VFP, but this old 2.6 code should still work

PRIVATE nSeconds
nSeconds = SECONDS()
DO WHILE SECONDS() < (nSeconds+30)
** nothing to do
ENDDO

This won't work if the 30 second time span goes past midnight - but you could code around that if necessary.