The bond lengths in a series of strained, buried Ga1-xInxAs thin-alloy films grown coherently on InP(001) have been determined by high-resolution extended x-ray absorption fine-structure measurements. Comparison with a random-cluster calculation demonstrates that the external in-plane epitaxial strain imposed by pseudomorphic growth opposes the natural bond-length distortions due to alloying. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(98)03235-5].