>I don't see why not to use reccount() on the cursor after it's built.

Because it doesn't work in all cases.
It only works if VFP cannot optimise the query to a filtered view of the original table.
Or if the query is a join of tables.
Of if you use the NOFILTER clause to force a cursor instead.

I managed to totally BREAK an application somone else wrote, because they used RECCOUNT() on the result set instead of using _TALLY.
I addded an index to the table which made it a fully optimisable select statement.
VFP then returned a filtered view of the table, with _TALLY=1 but RECCOUNT() over 50,000!