>>>See the changes in the code. What exactly you're doing here? Can you give more info, please?
>>
>>What I am trying to do is to see if the letters "TOF" are in one of these five fields. That's all. Let me try your suggestions, and thanks Nadya.
>
>In that case (unless you need to know which field contains these letters), the simpler way would be to check
>
>

"TOF" $ note1+'*'+note2+'*'+note3+'*'+note4+'*'+note5+'*'

>
>I've added the asterisks in between so you wouldn't get a .t. if note2='START' and note3='OFTEN'.

Nice tip! I was trying to think about one line solution, but haven't come to this one.