Perform date

John, Thanks for your input, however we felt we were forced to use the format description. The dates were transfered from the old type informix and would not even appear in the screens until we put the format in the.per. The way you explained it works, but I don't know why we are having to force the format on the fields to get them to show up. They where like 03/03/93 in the load file. Any comments appreciated. cheryl