Subject Re: Filter From Mervyn Bick <invalid@invalid.invalid> Date Wed, 15 Dec 2021 08:55:48 +0200 Newsgroups dbase.getting-started On 2021/12/14 06:00, AGOSTINHO wrote: > Very strange behavior > When trying from the command box  "SET FILTER TO BETJ_N <> 'J' then when browsing I get only records with the  betj_n " " (empty) non paid records > but when applying this to the rowset property I don't get any records on the grid. > What can be wrong here? There is nothing actually wrong.  It is a matter of understanding what dBASE is doing behind the scenes. With the original DML commands dBASE did not differentiate between a character field containing spaces i.e chr(32) and a character field containing nulls i.e chr(0).  This decision was made long before localSQL was included in dBASE. When you are working from the Command panel, SET FILTER TO uses the original DML commands.  If you test for ' ' as the contents of a field dBASE returns true for fields containing either chr(32) or chr(0) OODML (Object Oriented Data Manipulation Language) used for objects uses localSQL to access tables. localSQL, which is a limited sub-set of SQL, does differentiate between chr(32) and chr(0). In a query you can actually use    sql = 'select * from "debiteur_test.DBF" where betj_n is null or betj_n = " "' The filter property of a rowset object uses SQL expressions but it is very limited. From the help file Simple comparisons using the basic SQL comparison operators (=, <>, <, >, <=, >=) are supported; other predicates such as BETWEEN, IS NULL, IS NOT NULL and LIKE are not. Chr(0) is not equal to chr(32) so setting the filter property to betj_n = ' ' will not include records where betj_n contains NULL. The solution is to set the filter to  betj_n <> 'j' As both NULL and ' ' are not = 'j' records containing either ' ' or NULL will be included. The alternative is either to save  ' ' to betj_n (or 'N' as Mattia suggested) when a new record is added to the table. Mervyn.