Sorry for the last msg. finger check, msg got away when half done When a string representing a number is <SV..>ed or <SX..>ed, it is stored in a string of bytes in either case, but the representation is different. So a S/G has a 'flag' that tells it which representation is in use. Which means that there are two "data types" for a S/G, which indicates the data type of the current representation being STRING or NUMBER. What I'm after is some way were the FLAG setting (STRING or NUMBER) can be tested with an <IF..> statement. No human intervention allowed. I know of one XY3 way, but it's pretty kludgy and I don't know if it will work on XY4. If there is way to do it on XY4 with some newly introduced function, I'd like to know about that, but an Xy3 way to do it is what I'm really after. Wally Bass