>I have to create a bunch of new fields for several free tables. The previous names given to fields were not consistent. Guess I am looking for naming tips that might make my life easier for future modifications. I do understand
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>1) be consistent with name given to a field. same field in two different tables should be given the same name
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>2) be consistent with abbreviations.
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>But should I ?
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>3) Keep the field name to under 8 characters?

With free tables you have a limit of 10 characters in the name, so use 'em up!
If they're in a database but you may need to copy the data out to free tables at some point, keep them at 10 characters, so the free tables and the database tables have the same field names.

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>4) Not use any special characters (such as the underscore)
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Depends on if you want them for readability.

>Any other tips that you can give me will be appreciated.

You've probably seen the debates on adding a type indicator - e.g., cField for a character field. Whether to do that or not is up to you and what you feel the most comfortable with while coding.

The main thing, IMHO, is to avoid using VFP reserved words as field or table names.

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>Thanks
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>Brenda