>Conform or comfort, that is the question. The "thou shalt not have memos in a grouped query" added a few whites to my beard while I was working with SLQ Server 2000 - that's actually a ridiculous limitation, given that it works just fine in VFP 7. And also the mandatory "either in an aggregate function or in a group by list" requirement for all fields involved... the same.

Here, I totally agree with you.

>Conforming to standards is fine, to a point. At that point, Set ... 70 would be my choice.

Well, I spent 20 hours since last night to convert about 40 SQLs. All of them were as long as those I posted here last night. So, that gives you an idea of all the work I've been into since then. But, now it's done. So, at least, I can say that my application is ANSI SQL compliant.