>Well I'll be @!#*. You are right. I've been running in circles trying to figure out how to write schemas and dtd's and never thought to try the xmltocursor on this piece of data. The sample of course is only part of a much more complex file that has data in mixed forms like that shown (mixed between <>) and also other parts where the data is separated into discrete elements like:
>
>

><schedule time=1 display=45 program=xx76578 />
><data>
><data1>xxx</data1>
><data2>XXX</data2>
></data>
>

>
>Can you give me some help on how to write a schema to deal with this? I'd prefer to do the whole job in VFP if I can.
>
>Thanks for your tip.

Don,
I sent that one as you had only representation of a single table. Now this one has 2 tables (not hierarchical - one Schedules with a single record,3 fields and another simply Data again with a single record,2 fields).
Just adding a root tag wouldn't help this time and VFP is not good as .NET with XML:(
XMLDOM seems to be a better choice.
PS:You might also try XmlAdapter. When I first tried it I surrendered (but was lazy and tried only a few hours). When I need such things and have a sample of the XML then what I do is to create my own parsers (can't use XMLDOM well).
Cetin