Ok, that answers all questions - I guess I'll stay with the less elegant but 'supported' solution.
Thanks

>Aleksey provided this info in Re: SQL, Views, and Macro Substitution Message #921794
>
>>Ahh, very good news!
>>We re-wrote the code to use SELECT... INTO CURSOR ..., instead of a view, but requerying is not as elegant (the view was indexed only once, and the current index did not change when requerying, while the cursor needs to be re-indexed and the current index re-set for every new set of records). I did not test for speed, in the instance we use it it does not seem to be an issue.
>>Is it now a documented feature? I looked in Help, and found the syntax '&lcMacrotest' (not '&?lcMacrotest') which does a different thing.
>>If it is not documented, how did you know the syntax has changed? I guess the current VFP9 way makes more sense... I remember that it's what was originally tried in VFP8, and it did not work, then it was found that '&lcMacrotest' with lcMacrotest not in scope worked.