>Vlad, if the programmer was a Clipper programmer, he may assume that any parameter passed defaults to LOCAL not PRIVATE, as that is how Clipper treats variables. Therefore he was switching a LOCAL to a PRIVATE for some reason as I suggested in my previous message.
>
>Barbara

So, in Clipper, params are LOCAL (is this the same LOCAL as in VFP?) and not PRIVATE as in FoxPro. That would make sense. I have no idea if the author was a Clipper programmer before, but it's possible since I found a PRIVATE CLIPPER in a procedure (the CLIPPER variable was not used anywhere else, only declared).

I also don't know if I have the original version, if it was modified by somebody else, etc.

Thanks Barbara! I think you solved it. A virtual beer will come by private email. :)

Vlad