You might want to add a "pre-selection" step... have the user choose the first character "A", "B", .. "Z" (and "0" - "9" if numeric). This way, you limit the selections to those beginning with the chosen character. The array itself will populate faster too (since you won't be hitting any ASCAN limits).

I also agree that the cursor concept should work fine too.

>I think you reached a limitation of ASCAN. I couldn't find it documented, but you're approaching the array limit, anyway (65.535 elements).
>
>I know this is not a straight answer to your question, but haven't you though about changing from an array to a cursor? Then you haven't any limit, and you can probably reproduce the same searhc behaviour.
>>
>>We have an array used for listboxes with a built-in search function. The search function now gets stuck in an endless loop when the start position of ASCAN is above 32,768 (which happens to be 2 to the power of 15).
>>
>>If I do...
>>ASCAN(myArray,'myString',34,000)
>>ASCAN() is actually starting at 32,768, which doesn't help me if I'm trying to get past 34,000.
>>
>>Has anyone had similar probelms with ASCAN or any other array function when dealing with large arrays or maybe a work around.