You can use the INITIALIZE command. This will move spaces or zeroes depending on the pic. Later Ron Horner HP3000 Senior Programmer/Analyst Administrative Management Group [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- From: Cary A Marshall [SMTP:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Wednesday, December 16, 1998 6:07 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: 01 Level Initialization in COBOL Hello Everyone, I'd like to initialize the working storage for a file area in a COBOL program which contains numeric and alphanumeric fields. It's been a while since I've worked with COBOL, but I thought that if you initialized the file at the 01 level, then values at the 02, 03, etc levels would be properly initialized. Can this be done? If so, how? I've been told "no way", but I seem to remember doing so by moving low-values or spaces or .... to the 01 level. TIA Cary Marshall