Subject Re: indexing with character numbers From Charlie <tm@tc.com> Date Sun, 26 Jan 2025 14:19:55 -0500 Newsgroups dbase.getting-started Thanks Mervyn...  I hadn't looked at your first response closely, but after doing so a light went on in the back of my head!  it works great now. replace all id with str(val(id),12,0) use collection exclusive index on category+id tag test use collection order test Mervyn Bick Wrote: > On 2025/01/26 17:01, Charlie wrote: > > Thanks for your help guys. > > > > I tried this... > > > > i tried indexing on val(id)   and it didn't seem to work.  So I tried indexing on a field that was already numeric and it worked alone.  But when I did this... > > >   index on val(id) tag whatever works for me.  id must, however, be a > character field. > > > > > > index on category+numeric field tag test  the numeric field was not in order. > > > > and have it work? > > > > For a compound index, i.e an index on more than one field, all the index > expressions MUST evaluate to characters. > > Mervyn.