Curious Error Messages

[Center]

Sometimes when I click on a database and dbase 4 starts to open it will say this:
Compiling line 1-(then shows a couple of graphic charcters above ascii letters) Error on line 1:***Unrecognized command verb.
Compiling line 2
Error on line 3:Line exceeds maximum of 1024 characters. Compiling line 3.
It causes no problem. I just hit cancel and everything runs great. But since I have not yet typed use (database) or have not typed do(prg), where are there any lines to give errors?

 

[1oldfoxman]

Any DOs in the CONFIG.DB file? dBaseIII had such a file that was read automatically if dBase found it in the same directory as dbase.exe.

hth
Dennis

 

[Center]

No. But I may have found something. Someway an illegal character had gotten into the file I was trying to use (looked like a music note) in about rec.# 40000 out of 65000. Deleted that and didn't get the message next time. How that would cause errors like line 1 and line 3 can't imagine, but it did seem to fix that one.

 

[dbMark]

Likely scenario: The non-standard character was in an indexed field and that garbled the index. You can get weird errors when that happens.