Gotcha, thanks for the clarification. I had gone off on the trail of "Of course you can have a period in a macro! What are they talking about?"

Gary


>Hi, Gary-
>
>>I must have missed the real question here.
>
>The difference is subtle. It's not whether the variable's value has a period, but whether the variable's literal has one.
>
>>I put:

>>x=[messagebox(thisform.caption)]
>>&x
>>
>>x='thisform.caption'
>>messagebox(&x)

>
>In your example, The string "x" has been evaluated (no period in "x") and resulted in a perfectly legitimate command.
>

messagebox(thisform.caption)

>>
>>Isn't this what we're talking about? I must have misunderstood the issue.
>
>Let me give you an example, and hopefully, that'll help explain the difference. Let's say I have a form that builds a Select statement that I'll run before printing a report. So, I have a custom property called SelectCmd. Something like:
>

>ThisForm.SelectCmd = "Select * from Customers"
>

>I can't do the following:
>

>&thisform.SelectCmd.
>

>Or any other variation. Since the "." terminates the macro expression, FoxPro would try to find a string variable called ThisForm, but that's of course not available. So, I have to do this:
>

>lcCmd = thisform.SelectCmd
>&lcCmd. && Don't need the period in this case, but just making the point. No pun intended.
>

>The issue of prefixing literals with "m." is the same thing.
>

Local lcSelectCmd
>lcSelectCmd = "Select * from Customers"
>&m.SelectCmd. && Will look for a string variable "m"
>&lcSelectCmd. && Is okay.
>