Correction INLIST() has been optimizable probably as far back as vfp6.

>>Hi
>>
>>I have a large table with a status field and I want to select the records for a group os status's.
>>the table is indexed on the status
>>
>>this can be done by
>>

lcStatusList = 'AFTHEW'
>>SELECT* ;
>>FROM mytable ;
>>WHERE mytable.status $ ?lcStatusList

>>
>>Unfortunately, this does not optimize.
>>
>>Is there any way to fully optimize this query without expanding the Select to something like
>>
>>

SELECT* ;
>>FROM mytable ;
>>WHERE mytable.status = 'A' OR ;
>>	mytable.status = 'F' OR ;
>>	mytable.status = 'T' OR ;
>>	mytable.status = 'H' OR ;
>>	mytable.status = 'E' OR ;
>>	mytable.status = 'W'

>
>You could use the INLIST() function in your WHERE clause but likely that won't optimize either. CORRECTION: in VFP9 the INLIST() option is reported as fully optimized.
>
>Something you could try:

SELECT ;
>  * ;
>  FROM MyTable ;
>  WHERE MyTable.Status IN ("AFTHEW")

>
>What I usually do in cases like this is create a GetWhereClause() function and do something like

lcWhereClause = GetWhereClause("AFTHEW")
>* above sets lcWhereClause to "myTable.status = 'A' OR ..."
>
>* Then,
>SELECT ;
>  * ;
>  FROM MyTable ;
>  WHERE &lcWhereClause

Using macro substitution like this basically costs nothing, it's called only once during parsing of the SELECT - SQL and not during its actual execution.