I don't know how it is possible to construct resuseable/loosely coupled classes and use static alias names.

In the example below, if the alias "per" is expected to be used by an object, - what if another object is instantiated in the same datasession that wants to use the same table ? It means that objects have to be aware of other objects that want the same alias - not very reuseable !!

I always use temporary alias names -
eg.

SELECT 0
USE mytable AGAIN
lcMyAlias = ALIAS()

SELECT * ;
FROM (lcMyAlias) ......

Is this common pratice or are people sharing a cursor between objects and carefully taking note to restore the record pointer/order etc. etc. ?

>IF the table to be used is already open in another workarea than the current one, it will be opened in a new workarea with a different alias. That could be a problem if you were expecting it to be a known alias name. At least that is how it works in VFP6. Wouldn't it be better if you are concerned about whether the table is already open us use something like :
>
>

IF !USED("PER")
>     USE PER ALIAS PER IN 0
>ENDIF
>SELECT PER