>Let's face it. NO system is 100% foolproof. That's why I check for existing values & trap errors.

I thought that VFP already had a SYS function that returned a ten-character unique ID based on the time. From help, SYS(2015):

Returns a unique 10-character procedure name that begins with an underscore followed by a combination of letters and numbers.

Syntax

SYS(2015)

Returns

Character

Remarks

SYS(2015) can be used to create unique procedure or function names.

The name that SYS(2015) returns is created from the system date and system time. Calling SYS(2015) more than once during the same millisecond interval will return a unique character string.

This function has worked wonderfully for me for generating unique values for key fields and the like.