believe me, i've heard the "your db is wrong" argument before.  I found no
other viable way than having a table of data for a specific record, and then
using the tablenamefield in subsequent forms/queries/reports.  all this goes
to the fact that the data being entered into the DB is done through a C
program which i have no control over, and works by making a new data table,
and a new main table record entry.

And to respond to your answer:
it didn't work.  do the < and > need to be there or is it just the comma and
the actual name of the field?