Thanks for everybody for the quick and valuable replies.

I have points 2 and 4 clear.
However, I tried to use SUBSTR(ASCII_CHAR(),1,1) and I still got the same
error.
Setting EOL to more than 13 characters long does not solve the problem
either.
I am using the UDF library that comes with Interbase.
I have not tried other libraries, but I was tempted to experiment and
implement the UDF CRLF myself . I did it but got this message whenever I
reference the function:
Invalid request BLR at offset 29
function CRLF is not defined
module name or entrypoint could not be found.
I have put my dll in the UDF directory where ib_udf resides, and have
defined the CRLF function as stdcall.
Any suggestions?

As for the external file name, I prefer not to touch system tables as
administrator privileges are required, and there might be other restrictions
as well. This leads me to think if it is possible to create the table from
within a stored procedure with a CREATE TABLE that has the required filename
passed as a variable. Is that possible?. And what if the table has triggers?
Is it possible to define triggers as well from withing a stored procedure
(because I suppose we cannot drop and create a table without dropping its
triggers first)?

TIA


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