>The reason that the llfound variable is used is that it allows for a "soft search" which can be quite handy. The above doesn't.

You need the "found" information in any case to decide what to return <g>,
but that info should be not gathered inside every loop-run.
Here personal styles will differ even more:
Some would prefer something wordy like

lnresult = 0
DO WHILE lnfirst < lnlast
...
ENDDO
IF tsearchfor = tarray[lnmid] THEN
  lnresult = lnmid
ELSE
  IF llsoftsearch THEN
    lnresult = lnlast
  ENDIF
ENDIF
RETURN lnresult

while some would call my probable favorite "too tricky"
[still giving all possible return values at one glance]

LOCAL lnfirst, lnlast, lnmid, lnFoundExact
lnfirst = 1
lnlast = ALEN(tarray, 1)
* INTENDED: Local, but no init for lnFoundExact
DO WHILE m.lnfirst < m.lnlast
  lnmid = INT((m.lnfirst + m.lnlast)*0.5)
  Do Case
    case m.tsearchfor > tarray[m.lnmid]
      lnfirst = m.lnmid + 1
    case m.tsearchfor < tarray[m.lnmid]
      lnlast = m.lnmid - 1
    otherwise
      lnFoundExact = m.lnMid
      exit
  EndCase
ENDDO
return  iif(vartype(m.lnFoundExact)=="N", m.lnFoundExact, ;
        iif(m.llsoftsearch, m.lnLast, 0))

I still believe "exit" enhances this particular code -
which was one of the argument starters of this thread.

Any chance to get something thread-recursive here ? ;-)

thomas