>Everything you have said is right. But that's not the problem. The problem lies with the fact that a program that I have no control over is expecting a table and index as parameters. It looks like I may have to write my own program (that emulates the current program) to replace the program. Anyway thanks for everyones help.

The problem, then, lies precisely in the fact that you don't have control over the program. Of course, you can create a temporary index (filtered) and pass your program the table and the temporary index. But that would probably be quite inefficient.

At least two other options exist.

If the program needs to read data, but not modify it, you might select the required data into a cursor. Create a "dummy" index, and pass the table and index as parameters.

If the table needs to write data back to the tables, do the same, but with a p-view. Once again, create a temporary index, if the called program requires this as a parameter.

OTOH, if you don't have control over the program, this might eventually cause you other problems too; so it might indeed be better to change this situation (and create your own version).

HTH,

Hilmar.