>I do not use single character aliases in normal useage, but I have used and have seen numerous examples of its useage in SQL selects with no reported ill effects. I fact, If you look at the VFP help file under Select SQL examples, you will find it used there, so I would guess that it is not a probelm with SQL select. The following is from VFP help file:
>
>

SELECT - SQL Command Examples
>
>The following examples illustrate the use of user-defined functions with SELECT -
>SQL:
>
>[SNIP]
>
>Example 2
>
>Example 2 displays the contents of three fields from two tables and joins the two
> tables based on the cust_id field. It uses local aliases for both tables.
>
>CLOSE ALL
>CLOSE DATABASES
>OPEN DATABASE (HOME(2) + 'data\testdata')
>SELECT a.company, b.order_date, b.shipped_on ;
>   FROM customer a, orders b ;
>   WHERE a.cust_id = b.cust_id
>
>[SNIP]

>
>I would say that this illustrates that at least the VFP documentation team does not think that one character aliases are ill-advised in SQL selects.

Hmmm, the funny thing is that these examples were somewhat changed in the doc of VFP7. Instead of a/b, they now use x/y.

It must have gotten some attention from the vfp-team. Perhaps the doc-team thought "well, let's then change the doc!", while the developers-team thought "well then, let's kill the bug!".