>>>I get an error when I say ?DATBASE->lastname. DATBASE='8finance' and refers to 8finance.dbf. This seems quite a valid statement to me.
>>>AAUGH!
>>> "DATBASE is not an object" is the message I get.
>>
>>? &datbase..lastname
>Ed, turns out I forgot to sele another workarea b4 I opened up the current one and thus losing the reference to Datbase.
>
>does &datbase..lastname = datbase->lastname?

database->field may still work (where database is an actual table name, not a variable), but isn't recommended.
use & for macro substitution. use .. (two periods) after macro substitution to say macro is done here and second period is beginning of rest of statement.