Hi Jim,

Hi Tamar,

First, thanks Tamar for providing sample code to demobstrate this problem.

>I see the problem clearly regarding DISTINCT. Not so with GROUP BY, but I take your word for it.

See below.

>I can only guess that the incidence of actual usage of memo fields with distinct must be low (which makes some sense to me as a general rule).
>The GROUP BY would seem to be far more common usage, yet I can't (doesn't mean there weren't any) recollect this being discussed here to any extent.

I pointed to this problem many times. Here're a few examples:

- Re: Insonsistent Data Returned Message #558004
- Re: Select Max(field1) + its corresponding fields? Message #571657
- Re: Problem with MAX() in SELECT Message #609503
- Re: SELECT SQL and MAX() Message #609504
- Re: Problem in writing SQL(detail) Message #681074

>In any case, I would have PREFERRED a different implementation. But we get what we get.

Hah? VFP8 implementation is consistent with ANSI standard. Why would they do it dufferently?