It may be that the SELECT xxx statement immediately after the query is resetting _tally. There is no reason to issue a SELECT, since after the query runs the results set is the currently SELECTed work area. (Hilmar, I know it is not you, I'm just replying at this point).

Dana

>That's right, I overlooked the fact that you already used NOFILTER. reccount() should give you correct results in this case. The potential problem with _tally is that several commands might change its value - as Jaime explains, that might even happen within the query itself (perhaps by a UDF), but it may also be due to some other command you give later.
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>For instance:
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>select ... from ... into cursor ... && 10 records, _tally should be 10
>count for 1 = 0 && overwrites value of _tally to 0
>? _tally
>

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>The code as you posted it doesn't pose this problem, but you may have additional code which you didn't post.
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>Hilmar.