>>>Yes, that's why I spent over an hour tearing hair out - I checked every which way to Sunday to verify the values but never confirmed until desperate what OLDVAL was returning .NULL.
>>
>>Don't really know what to suggest - just a couple of SWAGs:
>>
>>- is it possible your table is corrupted, or somehow actually contains a .NULL. even though it should not be possible?
>>
>>- has the table record pointer been at EOF() at any time?
>>
>>- any sort of database trigger etc. in place?
>
>I think OLDVAL() might also return .NULL. for a new record.
>
>Regards, Hilmar.

Hilmar,

As I've learned, it surely seems to.

But I wonder why when the table does not have NULL permissable in any of its fields. I would have thought that an APPEND BLANK in that case would surely put theequivalent of EMPTY() into each field.

Regards
JimN