Sergey, thanks for the reply.

I tried your code and it works fine. My situation is that the modal form which returns a value is being called from a pushbutton on another form. I've stripped it down to it's simplest form as follows.

Create Form1.scx with...
Caption = "Form 1"
WindowType = 1

Place a button form1 with...
Caption = "Call form 2"
Name = "cmdForm1"
PROCEDURE cmdForm1.Click
LOCAL lcRetVal

DO FORM FORM2 TO lcRetVal

WAIT WINDOW NOWAIT "Form 2 return value = "+lcRetVal
ENDPROC

Create Form2.scx with...
Caption = "Form 2"
WindowType = 1

PROCEDURE Unload
RETURN "The expected return value"
ENDPROC

PROCEDURE Init
thisform.top = 30 && so as not to cover form1
thisform.left = 30
ENDPROC

Place a button on form2 with...
Name = "cmdForm2"
Caption = "Close Form 2"

PROCEDURE cmdForm2.Click
THISFORM.RELEASE
ENDPROC

Then run the toolbar sample code you sent me, but with 'DO FORM Form1' instead of 'DO FORM MyForm TO RetVal'. Press the button on form1 to call form2. Pressing the button on form2 closes the form and correctly displays the return value in the WAIT WINDOW, but closing form2 using the toolbar (either button) produces an error ('Operator type mismatch...') that suggests the value was not returned to the variable.

I appreciated it's not a simple problem, but if anyone can throw any light on this problem, I would be grateful.

Regards,
Alan