>>I ultimately found that OLDVAL was returning .NULL. even though the field does NOT allow NULL (none of the fields in the database do).
>
>Since this is a new record (never committed), what would you expect OLDVAL to return? .NULL. seems like as good an answer as any to me.

Well since the "original record" in this case was a "blank" record resulting from an APPEND BLANK, and since that table definition does NOT have NULL checked-off for any of the fields therein, my expectation was that they would present "empty".
I don't really think that NULL is as good as anything else in this case.

Surely, if NULL *is* to be returned even when NULL is not allowed for a field, then this is worthy of documenting. Because I haven't located such, and because it sure feels incorrect to me, this still has the taste of a bug to me.

Cheers,
JimN