>Tell me about it...same thing on Win NT 4.0...I can regularly do the following:
>
>select * from arapp0 into cursor cJoe nofilter && executes fine, creates cursor
>? dbf('cJoe') && returns a temp file name, like C:\TEMP\77FJ09PA.TMP
>? file(dbf('cJoe2')) && Returns .F. -- no real file presence.
>
>I would be VERY interested to hear what is going on here.
>
>BUT, I have found a way to make things work OK. I wrote a MAKEWRITABLE() function that always can take a cursor (with or without physical disk presence) and make it writable:

>This seems to allow the name switch to another alias, though there STILL isn't a file presence for the new cursor name after this runs, at least not on my machine. Not sure what you are trying to do with your DBF(), but maybe this will help?
>
>Good luck! I will be watching this thread!
>
>JoeK

Joe,

Thanks for the reply,
I know i'm not alone on this one - Threads like this have been circulating for quite a while...
Yes the Use again trick will work (I think) but the file (and any associated indexes) do not get deleted when you close it so it makes the whole tidy up routine more messy

:-(