Thanks both. I might try the alternative you have mentioned below.

Cheers
Kev

>I'm gonna go out on a limb and wager two cents that your first example
>
>SELECT Table
>SCAN FOR Ref = lcRef
> lnRecNo = RECNO()
> SCATTER MEMVAR
> m.Ref = lcNewRef
> INSERT INTO Table FROM MEMVAR
> GO lnRecNo
>ENDSCAN
>
>might probably run slightly faster than the second example, especially if an index on ref exists and the order is set to the index tag containing that expression.
>
>In your Example 2, Fox must still navigate through the records by performing a SQL - Select; however, it might also create either a filter on the original table or temp files; while this is not guaranteed to occur, the chance that it might occur esists and would take some miniscule amount of time LONGER that the first example would not require.
>
>Better yet, comment out the storage and retrieval of the record number in your first example and don't scatter. Instead, try
>
>SELECT ThisTable
>SCAN FOR Ref = lcRef
> INSERT INTO NewTable (Fld1, Fl12, Fld3) ;
> VALUES (ThisTable.Fld1, lcNewRef, ThisTable.Fld3)
>ENDSCAN
>
>Not guaranteed to be any faster but who knows? It might eliminate the overhead of the added I/O cycles necessary to read the data into memory variables.