Hey Mike,

This is creaky memory at work here (lol)

I seem to recall that the whole idea of the SYS() functions, going back to the first FoxBase, was to add enhanced functionality to what was essentially a dBase clone while changing the actual language as little as possible.

Back then, the kiss of death was to not be compatible with dBase. So if you want to add stuff, what better way than to come up with a simple function like SYS() and just add a number for each new function? If you add new functions with names, you'd run the chance of not being compatible with the next version of dBase which may have the same name but work differently.

At least I *think* that was the justification. Perhaps someone else can add to this or correct it if I'm wrong.



>Anyone knows the background of the SYS() commands as to know why it has been done like that? Everytime I need to access one of them, I can't never remember what is the proper number to use. Why wasn't this done with function names that would have been easier to remember?