George,

Yes, and therefore here is the uncertaincy. What does it mean when type() returns empty string? Obviously, it is that Excel has not yet assigned any value and the type of the variable/expression is undefined and/or variable does not exist. And there is a difference: when foxpro declares x=.NULL., it means that x is already declared as a variable and should have type "L".

However in this case VFP type() should return "U", but not empty string. At least this behavior is not documented.

See other opinions on foxite.com forum. I initiated there a discussion yesterday.



>Yuri -
>
>If I have a field named X in a table which is character, then value of TYPE('X') is "C", whether or not X is .NULL. Please note that this differs from VARTYPE(X), which returns "X" in both VFP6 and VFP7.
>
>The big difference is that when Excel cell.value's are read in VFP7, they appear as .NULL., whereas they were "" [space(0)] in VFP6.
>
>- George
>
>

In addition to my previous message.
>It is interesting that TYPE(x) returns nothing in VFP7. Looks like a bug in VFP7. At least type() must return something!
>