I think this is better than a long shot.

A "filtered result set" is a likely outcome of the original statement and these can bring "oddities" in later processing.
My *guess* on this one is that it acts more like a "INTO ARRAY..." when no records are selected, in this case not creating the "cursor".

I'd also bet - assuming no other processing on the "cursor" - that checking _TALLY would have worked properly.
Checking _TALLY is, in my opinion, the right way to check what was produced by a SELECT statement.

cheers

>I'm all for long shots when there's no other alternative ... jim
>
>>A long shot? Would including the NOFILTER to the query make any difference?
>>
>>>Any guesses on how an alias can disappear?
>>>
>>>I have the following:
>>>

>>>      SELECT * FROM components INTO CURSOR MyComponents ;
>>>         WHERE KitID==lcPartNo
>>>      llIskit = 0<RECCOUNT("MyComponents")
>>>

>>>This is in a loop that is executed a few thousand times. On rare occasions, the second line fails with "alias not found" ... and when this occurs, ALIAS() is empty! That's right, I get a cursor with NO alias.
>>>
>>>Any guesses on how to get around this? (No, it's not as easy as doing RECCOUNT() -later on, having done various and sundry other things with other SELECT statements, I need to get back to this alias --)
>>>
>>>Thanks