>>whatabout -- where cField = padr(?vp_custcd,5," ")
>
>;). I tried that one too. Oracle gives me an error in that case, "Unknown SQL column."

Okay, I think I can answer this part, at least. One of your "Advanced Options" for remote views is "Precompile SQL on backend server". So, your "where" clause is interpreted by Oracle. And while "PADR" is a very fine VFP function, it's meaningless to Oracle. Try "RPAD" instead, and see if it works any better.

In general, if you precompile SQL on the backend Oracle server, you have to be sure that your syntax is consistent with Oracle SQL.