So it isn't a bug... TRACE I can be your friend when PARSEing: 4 *-* parse value _z.1 with . . . . fname >V> " 6/29/17 6:04p 16 A---- globalvar\test.txt" >>> "6/29/17" >>> "6:04p" >>> "16" >>> "A----" >>> " globalvar\test.txt" (notice that I used PARSE VALUE ... WITH so that the source value is traced).