>>can you create a cursor with an alias so that use can refer to itby an alias name like: "sele thisalias"
>Timothy,
>
>The name you give a cursor is its alias;
>
> CREATE CURSOR MyCursor ...
>
>will create a temporary table on disk named something like C:\temp\1283456.dbf and open it with the alias MyCursor.
>
> SELECT Blah FROM Blah, BlahA WHERE whatever INTO CURSOR MyResult
>
>will create a temporary table on disk named something like C:\temp\1283456.dbf and open it with the alias MyResult.

In none of these cases you can be sure that a temp file is created. VFP decides internally if the cursor is written in a file on disk or if it's kept in the memory.

In both of these cases, if the cursor is written to disk, the file extension is .tmp and not .dbf.

Vlad