>>>VFP 6.0
>>>
>>>Sometimes VFP lets me have long field names (over 10 characters)in a table and other time it doesn't (limits me to just 10).
>>>
>>>example:
>>>
>>> one table I have has a field called ''accountingperiod''
>>> (16 characters wide)
>>>
>>> another table will only let me call it ''accounting''
>>> (16 characters wide)
>>>
>>>Is there a way to make all of my tables let me have fields longer than 10 characters wide?
>>
>>Tables need to be a part of a DBC in order to have long field names; free tables are limited to the 10 characters as noted.
>
>Dumb question then: Why can a SQL SELECT cursor have long field names? They're not part of a DBC...

It's a cursor, which doesn't have exactly the same structure as a table; tables rely on entries in the DBC that map long field names to short field names; if you have a table with long field names and detatch it from it's DBC, the long field names are lost.