>I have a foxpro 2.5b application that uses the Sys(3) function to create temporary databases and
>text files. When I create an updated version of the exe file and place it into an existing application's
>directory, I get error messages that a temp file, ex 54909706.txt, already exists. When this happens,
>there are no previous temp files in the directory and I can see this new file in the directory
>because the application just created it. Is there anyway that the Foxpro ESL library file is
>storing this number twice when trying to assign a unique one?
Joe,

Craig and Tony have given you ideas on how to avoid this problem. The answer to your question is YES sys(3) can generate duplicate names. SYS(3) is seded by the system clock and on fast computers a loop can execute faster than the clock changes so you get duplicate values from SYS(3).