Your suggestion using FUNCTION CharBitNot looks good to me, as that's exactly what I do ... although the internals of my function are different:

FUNCTION Reversechars(lcChars)
   LOCAL lnI
   FOR lnI=1 TO LEN(lcChars)
      lcChars=STUFF(lcChars,lnI,1,CHR[255-ASC(SUBSTR(lcChars,lnI,1))])
   ENDFOR
   RETURN lcChars
ENDPROC

Jim


>>Hi All,
>>
>>I would like to know whether is there a way to index a table on 2 coulmns, Both are character fields. The First column has to be descending while the 2nd Column has to be ascending.
>>
>>Any answers,
>>Thanks,
>>JD.
>
>
>As said, everything is possible
>
>

>&& simple solution
>&& use a view
>
>create sql view ViewOnTablexx as ;
>    select ..... ;
>        from Tablexx ;
>        order by Fieldx desc, Fieldy asce
>

>
>
>Another possibility
>

>function CharBitNot(s)
>    return chrtran(m.s, chr(0)+chr(1)+chr(2).....+chr(255), chr(255)+chr(254)....+chr(1)+chr(0))
>endfunc
>
>select Table
>index on CharBitNot(Fieldx) + Fieldy tag pp
>
>&& performancewise it would be best to build the chrtran() arg2 and arg3
>&& in the init of your program, you could
>=_screen.AddProperty(BitNotCharFrom, chr(0)+chr(1)+chr(2).....+chr(255))
>=_screen.AddProperty(BitNotCharTo, chr(255)+chr(254)....+chr(1)+chr(0))
>&& or use a loop to build them
>
>select Table
>index on chrtran(Fieldx, m._screen.BitNotCharFrom, m._screen.BitNotCharTo) + Fieldy tag pp
>
>

>
>There may be other possibilities