Cetin,
Thanks for your input
2 issues arise however.

One, I really can't delete the ascii file
until I have acceptable results from the other application. Once
I have hit a 92% success rate from the app, I do delete the file
but that is way after the problem.

Two - what is the advantage of a table over a cursor. Using the
cursor, I will never have to deal with any multiuser issues which
there may well be!!

Sandy

>Sandy,
>A hard case. What I think you would at least need space as big as ASCII file + some for reordering. With cursor approach I think the space you need would be 2 * ASCII file + some for reordering. Now I think if there is any possibility to delete the ASCII file to recover space :
>- Create a table rather than a cursor
>- Append from ASCII
>- Manipulate
>- If succeeded and have space for reordering
>-- Delete ASCII && Could be written back from table
>-- SQL to table
>Cetin
>
>>Cetin,
>>What I didn't make clear is that in the load of the form, I use a
>>CREATE CURSOR command. After the user selects a file name with
>>GETFILE(), I use the APPEND FROM to imput the ascii file. After
>>Some data manipulation, I have to decide if I can create an ordered
>>table with an SQL command or simply create the table with a COPY
>>STRU command and get the data inside the new table. I then close
>>the new table and turn on another application with then uses it.
>>
>>The reason I need to order it is that the other application will
>>use the table for 21 hours if unordered, if ordered, it cuts it
>>down to 12 hours.
>>
>>By the way, the other app doesn't recognize indexes.
>>
>>>Sandy,
>Snip...