>>Alternatively, you can explicitly open a file for shared access by adding the
>>SHARED clause to the USE statement; IOW:
>>
>>USE MyTable
>>
>>becomes
>>
>>USE MyTable SHARED
>
>The only possible danger with this is if the tables are in a database. I have found that if you have EXCLUSIVE turned on, you will open the table shared, but the database exclusive.

That can always be avoided by explicitly issuing an OPEN DATABASE MyDataBase SHARED in the BeforeOpenTables of the DE. My recent tendency is to create a temporary DBC on each station that's used for defining temporary views for the session so that the main DBC doesn't bloat, and either persisting the temporary DBC on a user basis, so that temporary view do not bloat the main DBC, and keeping the common DBC small, letting each user have his own local temporary DBC, which also lets the user store his own views that persist for the user without enlarging the common DBC.