Because if the user is searching on last name ONLY. If he/she enters from smith to smith then it should include SMITH III*JAMES and it does. I'll try your code too. The code I modified from Elmer is working.

>Hi Tracy,
>
>Try this. Should work with EXACT OFF as well.
>
>Mike
>
>BTW Why are you replacing your spaces with * ? It will mess up "SMITH III*MICHAEL"
>
>

>xreturn=.T.  && include this record, .f. if record does not meet condition
>IF !EMPTY(xfrom) OR !EMPTY(xto)
>	xfrom=ALLTRIM(UPPER(xfrom))
>	xto=ALLTRIM(UPPER(xto))
>	lcInsName=UPPER(STRTRAN(insured.po_name," ","*",1))
>	lnPos=AT("*",lcInsName)-1
>	IF xfrom==xto
>		IF xfrom==LEFT(lcInsName,lnPos)
>			? po_name+ "    YES a match"
>			xreturn = .T.
>		ELSE	&& not a match
>			? po_name+"    NO not a match"
>			xreturn = .F.
>		ENDIF
>	ELSE
>	*--TCH 08/13/2003 * for  SMITH III*JAMES, etc
>	*IF !BETWEEN(UPPER(LEFT(insured.po_name, ;
>	*   AT("*",insured.po_name)-1)),xfrom,xto)
>		IF !BETWEEN(LEFT(lcInsName,lnPos),xfrom,xto)
>			xreturn = .F.
>		ENDIF
>	ENDIF
>ENDIF
>

>
>
>>We are searching records for any condition using a from and to condition. Records are stored like so:
>>
>>SMITH*JAMES
>>SMITH III*MICHAEL
>>SMITH JR*JOHN
>>SMITHERMAN*PETER
>>
>>I must account for the user entering from: SA to: SMITH or from: SMITH to: SMITH, or from: A to: Z, etc. SMITH to SMITH should NOT include SMITHERMAN...
>>
>>The below code works (If exact is on and near is off), but can it be faster?
>>