Hi Neil,

>1, There are exactly 2,929,716 records in pdmlog which WILL NOT grow anymore as this is now an archived table.

This is a reference constant table.

2, The maximum possible value for Reccount('temp') will be 1 ALWAYS. There will only be the ability to select 1 record.

Ok, i understand because you don't put temp cursor on the select

3, On the pdmlog there is no index on the mainkey - STRANGE!!!

This is the first problem.

First solution:

....
* ??? SET DELETED off           
* ???? USE ("U:\Data\Pdmlog.dbf") ALIAS Pdmlog 

* ???? LOCAL lclevel, lctype

* ??? lclevel = ' and ' + 'pdmlog.database = thisform.pageframe1.page1.combo1.displayvalue'
* ??? lctype = ' and ' + 'pdmlog.type = thisform.pageframe1.page1.combo2.displayvalue '

PRIVATE keySelected
WITH thisform.pageframe1.page1.List1
  FOR ix=1 TO .Listcount
        IF .Selected[m.ix]
	STORE PADR(.List(m.ix),fsize('mainkey','result')) TO keySelected
	EXIT  && only 1 can selected
        ENDIF
   ENDFOR
ENDWITH
IF VARTYPE('keySelected')='C'
  SELECT user, database, type, date, time FROM U:\Logs\310703\pdmlog.dbf WHERE  mainkey='&keySelected' into cursor crsmatch
 * 1 RECORD ONLY ???, macro is faster for long select
  thisform.pageframe1.page1.grid1.RecordSource =  'crsmatch'
ENDIF

This is a palliative, VFP scan all 2.9XX.XXX for found keySelected occurrences.

The master simple way is to add, to U:\Logs\310703\pdmlog.dbf a INDEX mainkey TAG and open it ( result is immediate if index and table are local file); the best way, for static table is to implement a hashing coding for traslate, but this is not usefull with VFP SELECT.

Now i see "U:\", then U:\Logs\310703\pdmlog.dbf is a remote network table ?

Neil, also INDEX mainkey TAG cannot save you, but it can to be more slower (VFP need to read INDEX and TABLE on the net).

Simple solution is to copy U:\Logs\310703\pdmlog.dbf on local file system,
and index it ( table is costant !).

Another solution for gain time, is:
- INDEX remote table;
- use a ODBC VFP connection, and send SELECT via ODBC;

if this no go well ( i use SQL, and have used VFP ODBC sporadically),
you need to implement a remote application and call it ( hard to implement ).

Note: Use m. prefix for read variables, it is faster and can protect you by strange result.

Fabio