Hi Paul

How about this one? It only processes the records that need to be processed. It closes the table if it did open it. It reselects the original workarea when finished.

FUNCTION replacechar
LPARAMETERS m.tcTable, m.tcField
LOCAL m.lnSelect
m.lnSelect = SELECT()

LOCAL m.llCloseIt
IF USED(m.tcTable)
  m.llCloseIt = .F.
ELSE
  m.llCloseIt = .T.
  USE (m.tcTable) IN 0
ENDIF
SELECT (m.tcTable)

REPLACE ;
  (m.tcField) WITH STRTRAN(EVALUATE(m.tcField),"(",""), ;
  (m.tcField) WITH STRTRAN(EVALUATE(m.tcField),")","-") ;
  FOR "("$&tcField. OR ")"$&tcField.

IF m.llCloseIt = .T.
  USE IN SELECT(m.tcTable)
ENDIF

SELECT (m.lnSelect)
ENDFUNC