Oops. Meta-data...blast from my past, from event-driven programming (vs. OOP).

All I meant was that I have table that is based on the DBC. In other words I keep information about tables, their fields, indices, and relations in it. It's just my way of doing it. You could get all the same info using combinations of DBGETPROP, CURSORGETPROP, RELATION, TARGET, etc.

So, what I do is the following (as represented in psuedo code) in WIZSTYLE.SearchClass.cboFields1.init()

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save cSearchAlias of the selected table (the one that'll be searched)
If the active datasession has my datadict.dbf used,
select it
save the current order
set the order to my "looking up fields" order
Build a string of table names that are relation TARGETs( cSearchAlias )
&& TARGET() Returns the alias of a table that is the target
&& for a relation as specified in the INTO clause of SET RELATION.
Filter my datadict table to just the fields in the either primary table
or related tables
Build the aWizFList[nCount,4] array from these choices.
&& mine lists the field caption, field_type, field name, and field len

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There are, I'm sure, plenty of different ways of going about this. This was really early VFP work for me, so I hope you'll find ways to implement your idea that are far better than mine. Also, this searching relies on tables and relations, which is going to obselete as I move to parameterized views :-(

I like the data dictionary because I don't have to include fields in it that aren't of interest to the users. But it is a pain to keep up to date...I have it *somewhat* automated...

If you're thinking you'll implement a framework soon, than maybe just do a quick-and-dirty now.

HTH

>I'm startin' to feel overwhelmed. Is a meta-data dictionary a feature of VFP, a third party product, something you developed on your own? Is it a table with your field names in it? Would it be bad form for me to ask to look at your class<g>? (I'm new here...)If I can get this one-to-many search class done, I can finish this project and maybe buy a framework.