>I disagree... when passed the index number of the index in question, the value of DESCENDING() indicates whether an index tag was created with the DESCENDING keyword.
>
>DESCENDING() -> current order of active index
>
>DESCENDING(1) -> create order of 1st index in the cdx

Nope. Try this:

USE _SAMPLES + "TasTrade\Data\Customer"
SET ORDER TO 1
?DESCENDING() && Returns .F., as expected
SET ORDER TO 1 DESCENDING
?DESCENDING() && Returns .T. = current direction
?DESCENDING(1) && Returns .T.

* and, in fact,
SET ORDER TO
?DESCENDING(1) && Returns .T.

Tamar