>I wish there was a good way. Pre-padding is one way, but, I think you still need exclusive access. Here's an example of using a memo without growing it:
>

>CREATE TABLE c:\temp\test (Mem M)
>APPEND BLANK
>REPLACE Mem WITH SPACE(100000)  && pre-allocate
>FOR i = 1 TO 1000
>  REPLACE Mem WITH STUFF( Mem,  1+ 100 * (i-1), 100, PADR( REPLICATE( TRANSFORM( i), 100), 100))
>ENDFOR
>USE
>

Pre-allocating space will in some cases makes your file bigger than what I have now. I also cannot afford to go exclusive everything I make a change in that file. Basically, I do one write every two seconds in a specific file having a memo field. So, I guess this has to be resolved once and for all at the product level.