>>>Erik, a nice trick that has been mentioned here but IMHO hasn't been given due emphasis is the USE AGAIN technique with Cursors. This essentially makes them into read-write entities. You can add/delete index tags as you like. You can reindex as much as you need. You can add/delete records.
>>>
>>So, unfortunately, this technique doesn't work anymore.
>
>>Vlad
>
>By using the NOFILTER qualifier in the Select command, I have found that this technique works all of the time. I've written some OLAP apps (commercial products, not just in-house stuff) that generate literally thousands of complex queries and in doing so, create thousands of intermediate read-write tables. In fact, it is VFP's capability to instantly create and populate read-write cursors that puts VFP above all other products as a desktop analytical database tool.
>
>I personally have never encountered an example where this technique doesn't work. If anyone can show me an example, I would love to see it.

I know about NOFILTER. But there's a bug in VFP and NOFILTER doesn't force the temp file to be written to disk.

To verify that:
1. Take a small dbf, 2-3 records, 2-3 fields. (Small enough to fit into memory.)
2. Run SELECT *, .t. AS Dummy FROM MyTable INTO CURSOR TempRes NOFILTER
3. ? DBF() && returns a valid temp file name.
4. ? FILE(DBF()) && returns .f.
5. USE (DBF()) AGAIN && Gives an error because the temp file doesn't exist.

Also, as said before, there was a long thread about that here. Just search for NOFILTER. I think the thread was "Phantom cursor file" or something like that.

Vlad