It's documented in VFP8 help under
Behavior Changes Since Visual FoxPro 7.0 and
INFO: SQL SELECT Behavior Changes in Visual FoxPro 8.0 mskb #
813361.
>This statement works in vfp 6 but not vfp 8.
>Select detail,noun,sum(price),sum(quantity) from s:bsyear03 group by detail;
>into cursor norton
>
>In vfp8 the error message is "SQL:GROUP BY clause is missing or invalid."
>
>shall I change my ways?
--sb--