Hi Ricardo,

Glad to see you again. Of course, left joins slow the perfomance, but it worked fine with inlist function (or multiple inlists with or, i.e. inlist(town,'code1', 'code2', ..., 'code24') or inlist(town,'code25', etc.))
I decided to change this algoritm to use additional join instead. Actually, it works from command line, though not fast, but somehow does'n work from our main program. It seems to me, that the problem is in here: "into table &qry_arg".
Anyway, I think, it basically works. I'll add check for number of joins (it should not exceed 10) and upload my new version on the development server.

Regarding DELETED() index I read many threads and as I understood correctly, the idea was that deleted() index slow down the perfomance. I mentioned this to my colleagues, but we haven't decided yet to get rid off them. We have to run many tests, before it would be clear.

Thanks for your help.

>Hi Nadya,
>
>First of all, i've heard that the DELETED() instruction on the Index expression may cause you problem (i think it was Craig's or Jim Booth's advice not to use it).
>I've read your problem description (didn't read your code, yet), but there is something that probabilly can make this a mess to you. Those LEFT JOINS aren't "killing" your query? Just for checking, take them off and do the query.
>Check the time performance now and say something.
>
>I hope this is the problem.
>
>Say something and good luck,
>
>Ricardo