Claude,
I can't imagine that spending the time to UPPER() megabytes worth of memos and then to use ATC() on top of that would be faster than just using atc() alone. I don't really have an adequate test table to try these tests:
atc( "searchphrase", memofield )
atc( "SEARCHPHRASE", memofield )
atc( "searchphrase", lower( memofield ) )
atc( "SEARCHPHRASE", upper( memofield ) )
at( "searchphrase", lower( memofield ) )
at( "SEARCHPHRASE", upper( memofield ) )
"searchphrase" $ lower( memofield )
"SEARCHPHRASE" $ upper( memofield )
>For some reason UPPER makes it speedier unless something has changed in VFP 7