>SET ANSI OFF >select ... from ... where cl_name ="GREE" and cf_name = "MAR" and cM_Initial = "">or I can use
>lcName = padr("GREE",25,"_") + padr("MAR",20,"_")+padr("",1,"_") >select ... from ... where cl_name + cf_name + cm_Initial LIKE lcNameFirst off: I believe if you set ansi off, the results should be different, so any comparison might be unfair just on the number of returned values for index expressions and the resulting data set - but I am a bit blurry at the moment from not enough sleep<g>.
select ... from ... where cl_name =="GREE" and cf_name == "MAR" and cM_Initial == ""should be equal to
lcName = padr("GREE",25,"_") + padr("MAR",20,"_")+padr("",1,"_") select ... from ... where cl_name + cf_name + cm_Initial == m.lcNameIf your table is non-trivial, always include the MDot: it gets searched for every record.