>>>Is there a way to convert a character field to a numeric field? (I need it to be numeric so there is a decimal)
>>>
>>>Thanks,
>>
>>Ryan,
>>
>>...and I'll point out the following:

CREATE CURSOR Foo (SomeNum N(7, 3))
>>m.somenum = '1234.56'
>>APPEND BLANK
>>GATHER MEMVAR && Works
>>REPLACE SomeNum WITH m.somenum && Doesn't work

Neither does insert work.
>
>I noticed this with APPEND FROM ARRAY as well.
>
>

** with the same cursor
>DIMENSION laArray(1,1)
>laArray[1,1]='1234.56'
>APPEND FROM ARRAY laArray && works

>Why does this work?

Just a SWAG, but I'd say VFP isn't doing any type checking with these commands. In the two instances I mentioned, a data type mismatch occurs. I noted some ago (late '80s/early '90s) a similar situation with the regular APPEND FROM command. I had to import an SDF file that contained a date. If you tried to do a straight APPEND at the time, the date field would always be empty. However, using a dummy table with identical field names and types, except that the date field was a character field, allowed me to first append into the dummy table, then append directly into the regular table and have the dates coverted automatically.