1. Is it OK to pass a Memo field as a parameter to a function?

I believe it would pass just like you passed it any other character field.


2. When declaring variables as Private, is it necessary that these variables be declared earlier in your program? (The FoxPro help information was a little confusing - 'Hides specified variables or arrays that were defined in a calling program from the current program.')

Unless you scope the variable as Public or Local, it would be Private by default. But for readability, I would declare them as private anyway. Do you name your variables according to scope (ex: gcChar, lnNumeric, plLogical)?