Donald ? Fred ?

What mean fails? It produces an error or nothing or the wrong is changed?

What exactly should that construct do?

I have the feeling that you try to set lar_sum.pj_id to a value that should change within the UPDATE command.
If this is what you need, it is not possible with a single UPDATE statment. You may create a relation between a lar_sum and dd_proj and use replace like

SELECT;
 dd_proj.pj_id,;
 dd_proj.pj_pcode;
 FROM dd_proj;
 INTO CURSOR curHelp1

INDEX ON pj_code TAG _pj_Code

SELECT lar_sum
SET RELATION TO ALLTRIM(CLS)+ALLTRIM(STR(INT(VAL(hno))))+ALLTRIM(AVAIL)+RIGHT(STR(INT(fy)),2) INTO curHelp1

SELECT;
 larno+cls_hno_av AS cTemp;
 FROM lar_sum_match_proj_nj) ;
 INTO CURSOR curHelp2

INDEX ON ON cTemp TAG _cTemp

SELECT lar_sum
SET RELATION TO larno+ALLTRIM(CLS)+ALLTRIM(STR(INT(VAL(hno))))+ALLTRIM(AVAIL)+RIGHT(STR(INT(fy)),2) INTO curHelp2 ADDITIVE

SCAN
 IF EOF(curHelp2) THEN
  LOOP
 ENDIF &&EOF(curhelp)

 REPLACE;
  pj_id WITH curHelp1.pj_id
ENDSCAN

SET RELATION TO
USE IN curHelp1
USE IN curHelp2

Agnes
>Agnes,
>
>I've tried it without FROM clause, and that Fails as well.
>
>Fred Z