>Thanks Cetin - this different approach works OK - the only problem I now have is alltrim(ing) the company name... ie...
>
>'select alltrim(co_companyname), co_primary from companies into cursor curCmbComps order by co_companyname'
>
>Is this possible?

Practically no. Because if it really does the trimming and first is only 3 chars making the column 3 wide you'd be losing others.
Why is that a problem ?
Cetin