>Without hard facts to back my opinion up.... My guess is that if your SQL is relatively simple, using only a single WHERE clause, then setting the file to the correct index in advance might speed it up and won't do any harm.

Yes, methinks if it ain't broke....would be nice to have some documentation on such things, though...

>However, if you have several WHERE clauses, each using a different index, then you're better off letting VFP handle it. The SQL engine seems to handle these orderings in its own fashion - NOT one that's documented or even logical.

Agreed. I wouldn't want to try and guess how vfp will handle multiple WHEREs. :)