>Ok, thanks. I noticed that too after I posted my message.
>
>But it goes deeper than that. If you create a textbox that has a date field as a control source, normally you can't enter an invalid date. You get an internally-generated WAIT WINDOW message telling you the date is invalid, and you type in a good date and go on your way. No error is generated.
>
>But with SET DATE SHORT, you enter say 01-01-0100, VFP throws and error and there is apparently no way to trap it. I tried catching it in VALID and the error occurs before VALID gets called.
>
>So if they want to not handle dates before 1600 for SET SHORT, fine. But there are still problems that need to be addressed.

You could use an unbound control, with a character value, and check whether dtoc(.Value) is not empty(). However, this adds the complication of synchronizing values in both directions (TextBox <--> Field), instead of VFP handling this automatically.