Hi All:
 
I found that it pays from time to time to check out various features of
FoxPro that I don't use extensively.  I modified the following from the
Help file about the system variable, _TALLY:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_TALLY = 
Returns number of records processed by the most recently executed 
table command.
 
Certain table/.DBF processing commands return information about their 
status ("talk") while they execute.  When such a command finishes 
executing, it displays the number of records it processed (if you have 
SET TALK ON), and stores this number to the _TALLY system memory variable.
 
Commands that return status information:
 
APPEND FROM                PACK        
AVERAGE                        REINDEX
CALCULATE                REPLACE
COPY TO                        SELECT - SQL
COUNT                        SORT                        
DELETE                        SUM
INDEX                        TOTAL
JOIN                        UPDATE
 
When you start FoxPro, _TALLY is set to zero.  Executing one of the 
commands above replaces _TALLY with the number of records the 
command processed.
 
This example uses SELECT to return the number of customers in California.
The result is automatically stored to _TALLY.  The _TALLY value is 
displayed.
 
SELECT * FROM Customer ;
 WHERE state = 'CA' ;
  INTO CURSOR temp
 
? _TALLY
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Because it works so well with so many commands, I looked back through some
of my old code and found some improvements.  For example:
 
      SUM amount TO jnTot FOR invdate > {12/31/96}
      COUNT      TO jnCnt FOR invdate > {12/31/96}   is reduced to
      
      SUM   TO jnTot FOR invdate > {12/31/96}
      jnCnt = _TALLY                            saving I/O processing time
 
and
      INDEX ON invdate FOR amount > 1000.00
      COUNT TO jnInv   FOR amount > 1000.00     is reduced to
      
      INDEX ON invdate FOR amount > 1000.00
      jnInv = _TALLY                             saving I/O processing time
 
Just remember to STORE _TALLY to a memvar immediately after the most 
recently executed table command as another table command will alter _TALLY!
 
David in Dallas.
--- Maximus/2 3.01
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