Thanks Sergey,
>I would use (not tested)
UPDATE ... SET field = RTRIM(field)
> WHERE field LIKE (RTRIM(field) + ' %')
Yeah, that should help cut it down a bit.
>I also would look into ways to eliminate the padding on VFP side.
I already know the answer to this one. Use VFP 8 and the cursor adaptor class. And that will happen hopefully sooner rather than later, but until then database and backup file bloat is causing some inconveniences.