Jason,

> Yes, as a matter of fact, I just figured out a way to get it to handle
> multiple columns in some cases. I convert the comma to a double-pipe so that
> each column is just concatenated into a single expression. Thus, it is an
> equivalent value. I'm adding a junk delimiter value just to be sure they are
> distinct.

Very clever, given that IB will also plase you by automatically casting
all non-character columns to varchar when you concatenate them.

> With strings a possible ambiguity could happen across column
> boundaries.

The risk is to get an incorrect result and no error message: what you
said you wanted to avoid in the first place. Perhaps, if more than one
column is involved, reverting to the fetch-all mechanism is not too bad
of an idea.
When a select distinct is made, there aren't usually many records
involved, after all.
Ciao
--
____
_/\/ando