>The omission of DELETED() from the ODBC standard is interesting. Do you know where I might see an unabridged copy of this standard? Other functions like UPPER() and STR() seem to work A-OK, so the stadard must not prohibit functions, just some functions, right ?

Are there only tables stored, or is Merant acting as some sort of SQL server? You could always try using ADO and sending a SQLEXEC to the server (assuming that Merant is a SQL server and has a 'DELETED' function).

j