I can't seem to locate where the manual states when the Report Variables (as listed in Report Designer) are assigned while .FRX files are processed. Through experimentation I've determined that report variables are assigned just before processing the detail band (i.e. they're not assigned when the header band is being processed). Yes, I've answered my own question on when this occurs, I'm still wondering if the manual states anywhere regarding the order of events while processing report files.

Though I've used VFP for some time, I hadn't come up with a situation until recently where this became a concern -- until now. Mainly this occurred while making a report that required a summary band that had a variable number of rows. This led to having to "fake" the summary band processing as a detail item, and conditionally print items. General format of report was something along the lines of:

detail band:
date time event-desc
date time event-desc
...
date time event-desc

summary band lists number of occurances of each event-type:
event-type-1 #-occurrances
event-type-2 #-occurrances
...
event-type-n #-occurrances

The number of event-types is variable, so I can't pre-allocate the space and use conditional printing to "shrink" the band (the number of event types could concievably span multiple pages).