>>I know that you can nest up to five levels but none of that data I believe is written to disk either until all are committed. This leaves the same problem intact.
>>

>>BEGIN TRANS 1
>>  some update code
>>
>>  BEGIN TRANS 2
>>    some status code update
>>  END TRANS
>>END TRANS
>>
>>If I'm wrong on that, then it would be the way to go but I think that
>>the data from trans 1 is not yet available to the select statements that
>>will be processed to determine the second update.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Steve
>
>Steve,
>
>When you begin a transaction, VFP directs all data access to the transaction buffer instead of the disk.
>
>-Mike

Are you sure on that one?  Although I've got to take a closer look at what is going on within my transactions, I don't think that my select statements are finding data that was updated in the 1st update.  More on this later after I look into it with some rather controlled tests.

Thanks,
Steve

PS Any many thanks to Barbara, Jim & Ed for also assisting with this.