Why not just use:

IF UPPER(LEFT(contri.csource,1)) == "P"
...

Relying on SET EXACT can get you in trouble, and can be avoided all together, HTH

>I am looking at some code that another person wrote:
>IF (contri.csource="P")
>
>then do some
>else
>endif
>what my problem is that contri.csource is a eight character field in which some case it may begin with "P" or whatever. However the code is not catching this I have set exact off what other setting could I have on that wouldn't catch this when say for instance contri.csource = "PXXXX"
>
>Thanks
>
>Milt