Cetin --

That substitution works fine, and the problem disappears. Thanks so much for a different approach.

Now -- is there a brief explanation of why my original approach failed? Always glad to learn from my mistakes (er, misunderstandings) ...

Jim


>>I have a form where I have two different grids that are showing records from the same table. I have used "USE filename AGAIN" to open multiple aliases of the table, with different filters for each grid.
>>
>>The grid display includes a field from another table named "JOBS". For each of my grids, I set the RELATION into JOBS for the table, and then referenced JOBS.Descript as a controlsource for a column in the grid.
>>
>>What happens is that I do not see the correct value for JOBS.descript unless I focus on the grid; originally this column is blank in both grids, and if I click on one of the grids, it show correctly there; if I then click on the other grid, it shows correctly as well, but the values in the first grid disappear!
>>
>>I must say that I also tried opening my JOBS file again for each grid, using "USE filename AGAIN", as I thought there might be some conflict with using SET RELATION into the same file. However, I got the same display problem this way as well.
>>
>>So, how come the SET RELATION only shows up in the grid if I focus on it?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Jim
>
>Jim,
>Instead of relation try an expression as controlsource. ie:
>

>(iif(seek(myAlias1.JobID,'jobs','jobIDTag'), jobs.description, ''))
>

>Cetin