Can anyone explain this?

As a rule of thumb, I have found that I should never put single quotes around an &VARIABLE name in a Dialogue Manager statement because FOCUS will think the name of the variable is the value. I always leave off the single quotes. However, whenever I use an &VARIABLE in a TABLE FILE statement such as a WHERE clause, putting single quotes around the &VARIABLE name works fine.

Just as a side note, if I add a .EVAL to the &VARIABLE name between single quotes in a Dialogue Manager statement it works properly. FOCUS evaluates the statement using the value of the &VARIABLE instead of the name.

I was just curious if anyone has experienced this behavior and can explain why.

hi mick
without quotes inside a TF, focus is guessing its a fieldname, but if your &var is numeric, then you don't use the '.
-s

Susannah,

Thanks for the reply but my question is more about the Dialogue Manager behavior, not the TF bahavior. I have learned my lesson with the WHERE clause and what it thinks is a FIELDNAME!