>What is the equivalent in SQL-server SQL pass-through of NODATA ? I.e how can I force an empty cursor -- efficiently? (This must be a dumb question!)

The last time I worked with VFP was in 3.0 so this may be outmoded, but I would put WHERE 1=0 in the expression and it seemed to do the trick. (I was attached to an old version of SQL Server - whatever was current in 1996). The data came down MUCH faster than if it actually tried to match the WHERE clause against each record.