Thanks Myron - That did the trick. While the program for which I had to do this was actually written in Foxbase for DOS, as long as I can do it in VFP and get the desired result, that's fine. But if I understand the other replies correctly, it sounds like the pipe is the problem here.

>Try the following syntax
>
>append from delimited with character '|'
>
>-myron kirby-
>myronk@flash.net
>------------------------------------------
>>I had to import a text file which has pipes as the delimiter. When I use APPEND FROM DELIMITED WITH | I get a bunch of records with blank fields. I went into Modi file and replaced all the pipes with commas. Then I reissued the append command as "Append from type delimited", and the data came over into the table with no problem. Does anyone have any idea why this might have happened?
>>
>>Sylvia