> >
> >
> > I agree for such a small example. But it becomes a very different reading - and writing - experience when there are twentyfive columns from six tables, their JOIN conditions and a slew of WHERE conditions and ORDER BY columns are added and 15-byte long table names are repeated fifty times in the query. That is also the way a query utility writes it by default ,but please consider the plight of the poor bastard who has to write all of it by hand, and spell it right every F time.
> > No siree, not on my watch.
> >
> > -Anders
>
> I go for the query utility, otherwise 6 months down the road, you have to keep wondering what the alias a,b,c mean specially for the 25 column 6 table joins.
>
> Regards
> Tushar


The aliases A, B and C are no mystery, are they?; One can just look at the FROM clause. 'View SQL' in the Query/View Designer, or DBGetProp('viewname,'VIEW','SQL')

FROM Table1 AS T1  
 JOIN Table2 AS T2 ON T1.key=T3.key 
 JOIN Table3 AS T3 ON .. 

Technically, there's no problem with using single-letter query aliases in VFP but the letters A to J should be avoided (and don't work in VFP's Query/View Designer).

In the case of self-joins you just have to employ table aliases
FROM Customers AS C1 JOIN Customers AS C2 ON C1.col1 >= C2.col2



Cheers
Anders