Use ADIR(), as Sergey suggested, or SYS(2000).
Note that there is another reason to distinguish between these ways of doing it, and this is by design, not a quirk: FILE() is going to return .T. if it can find the file in your running APP while the other two will not.
Try the following in an EXE where x.dbf is built in and is not anywhere on your disk:
? ADIR(aa,FULLPATH("x.dbf"))
? FILE(FULLPATH("x.dbf"))
? SYS(2000,FULLPATH("x.dbf"))
wait
... FILE()'s behavior is important to the way compiled APPs and EXEs work.
>L<