I tried using my test program which used 6 variables in each loop with the following results.

using m. for all variables in 1 to 500000 loop
5.278 Seconds
NOT using m. for all variables in 1 to  500000  loop
5.027 Seconds

using m. for all variables in 1 to 1000000 loop
10.535 Seconds
NOT using m. for all variables in 1 to  1000000  loop
9.994 Seconds

using m. for all variables in 1 to 1500000 loop
15.752 Seconds
NOT using m. for all variables in 1 to  1500000  loop
14.992 Seconds

using m. for all variables in 1 to 10000000 loop
106.613 Seconds
NOT using m. for all variables in 1 to  10000000  loop
101.847 Seconds

Still not a convert:)

This my program

parameters m.interations,M.funct2test
if type("m.interations") <> "N"
  m.interations = 1000000
endif
if type("m.funct2test") <> "C" .or. at(")",m.funct2test) = 0
  m.funct2test = "datetime()"
endif
m.test1 = evaluate(M.funct2test)
m.test2 = evaluate(M.funct2test)
m.test3 = evaluate(M.funct2test)
m.test4 = evaluate(M.funct2test)
m.test5 = evaluate(M.funct2test)
m.test6 = evaluate(M.funct2test)

m.seconds1 = seconds()

for m.xx = 1 to  m.interations
	m.test1 =  evaluate(M.funct2test)
	m.test2 =  evaluate(M.funct2test)
	m.test3 =  evaluate(M.funct2test)
	m.test4 =  evaluate(M.funct2test)
	m.test5 =  evaluate(M.funct2test)
	m.test6 =  evaluate(M.funct2test)

next
?strtofile("using m. for all variables in 1 to "+alltrim(str( m.interations))+" loop"+chr(13)+chr(10),"test.txt",.t.)
?strtofile(alltrim(str(seconds()-m.seconds1,10,3))+" Seconds"+chr(13)+chr(10),"test.txt",.t.)


test1 = evaluate(funct2test)
test2 = evaluate(funct2test)
test3 = evaluate(funct2test)
test4 = evaluate(funct2test)
test5 = evaluate(funct2test)
test6 = evaluate(funct2test)
seconds1 = seconds()

for xx = 1 to  interations
	test1 =   evaluate(funct2test)
	test2 =   evaluate(funct2test)
	test3 =   evaluate(funct2test)
	test4 =   evaluate(funct2test)
	test5 =   evaluate(funct2test)
	test6 =   evaluate(funct2test)
next
?strtofile("NOT using m. for all variables in 1 to  "+alltrim(str( m.interations))+"  loop"+chr(13)+chr(10),"test.txt",.t.)
?strtofile(alltrim(str(seconds()-m.seconds1,10,3))+" Seconds"+chr(13)+chr(10),"test.txt",.t.)

Cheers
Elmer