Hi Larry,

Thanks for your reply. I was excited when I saw your simple solution. However, I'm still not getting the values that I need in every situation.
Consider the following:

lcTest = -32768
lcTest = bitlshift(lcTest,1) && lcTest now equals -65534 (which doesn't work)
lctest = -(2^16) + lcTest && lcTest now equals -131070, which as you said doesn't work either for the range of a shortint.

The VO function that does a bitLeftShift when lcTest = -32768, returns a 0 (zero)

These bitwise functions make me feel like an idiot as I just don't understand them... Unfortunately, I can't have the programmer change to a longint. What should I do in the instance above? -Jeff