>> an array being in memory, should give much quicker access
>> than a cursor/table.

> I've to disagree with you on this one. Arrays are quite slow in FoxPro.
> In most cases cursor will be faster than array. In addition, because of
> VFP and OS caching cursor may be in the memory.

you are right. i guess what i meant, but didn't say that "in theory"
array access would be faster. not only your point about caching the
cursor, but the array may be on disk due to virtual memory pages
swapped out.

compared to any other language i've used, VFP array processing is slow.

i'm sure there are lots of other reasons, but i assumed one of the
biggest reasons is that (because each column in an array with
dimension > 1 can have different data types) some kind of indirectness
HAS TO be involved in the subscript-to-memory-address-lookup
translation process.

that really bugs me, after using strictly typed languages like C++
and Pascal and PL/I. some people used to whine "i have to declare
all my variables". ha !! i love those languages BECAUSE i could
strictly control all my variables. i'd much prefer that the FoxPro
dev team had provided a STRUCTURE programming construct available
and make arrays of structures instead.