>You still have to flag the error cases:
>(1) dv is '00'
>(2) dp is '00' and sd is not '00' (presuming '00' is not a valid department no.)

Nope. Strange, but true. '02....' is not the same as '02000'. '0200..' means something different than '02....'. I argued with that, but it was set like that a long time ago, so it's mainframe thing (it's 2001 now and the mainframe still haven't became obsoleted yet? THIS is what my co-worker is doing, this is why I gotta get outta here before I start to assume that VFP 6.0 are alike mainframes LOL).

Chuck