>I have become the 'victim' of some unforseen behavior convering the 'VAL' function. The return from Val('1234567A') is 1234567 and the return from Val('1234567E') is 1234567 but the return from VAL('1234567E01') is 12345670. In other words, the val function interpets the letter 'E' followed by numbers as being scientific notation. Is this a feature or a bug?

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It is a documented feature.

Look at the sample in the help file:

VAL( ) FunctionSee Also
SET DECIMALS | STR( ) | SYS( ) Functions Overview
[This topic is part of a beta release and is subject to change in future releases. Blank topics are included as placeholders.]

Returns a numeric value from a character expression composed of numbers.

VAL(cExpression)
Return Values
Numeric

Parameters
cExpression 
Specifies a character expression composed of up to 16 numbers. Rounding occurs if more than 16 numbers are included in cExpression. 
Remarks
VAL( ) returns the numbers in the character expression from left to right until a non-numeric character is encountered (leading blanks are ignored). VAL( ) returns 0 if the first character of the character expression isn't a number or a plus sign (+) or minus sign (-).

VAL( ) can be used to convert the character strings returned by the Visual FoxPro SYS( ) functions to numeric values.

Example
CLEAR
STORE '12' TO A
STORE '13' TO B
? VAL(A) + VAL(B)  && Displays 25.00
STORE '1.25E3' TO C
? 2 * VAL(C)  && Displays 2500.00
See Also
SET DECIMALS | STR( ) | SYS( ) Functions Overview



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