Why doesn't A5v9 work w/ Visual Foxpro tables

[JAF]

Re: Why doesn't A5v9 work w/ Visual Foxpro tables

What is R&R?
And... what can be dangerous about using A5 with active-link tables for reports?

I am trying to figure out this one small step (deploying a reporting tool) so I can begin replacing my VB6 code that interfaces with the VFP6 database. The next step is to modify the database and the final step is to jump completely into A5 and lose the VFP database entirely.

[Jeff Fried]

Re: Why doesn't A5v9 work w/ Visual Foxpro tables

VFP has a built-in report writer that is quite capable. You can use that, or my favorite is R&R.

As for connecting to the VFP data, it is not clear what you're trying to do. I don't believe active link is necessary. When you use VFP and create a DBF with VFP, then it is not readable by Alpha Five. However, if you already have an Alpha Five DBF created (i.e., a dBase III format or Foxpro 2.6 format, which A5 is built on), the when you edit the data with VFP it remains as an A5-formatted table.

Jeff

[jjfcpa]

Re: Why doesn't A5v9 work w/ Visual Foxpro tables

JAF

Just to recap.

You want to access your VFP tables in A5 for reporting.

I'm not sure when MS decided to make the DBF structure proprietary, but it was the version when they introduced DBC (database container). I'm not sure if that was VFP6, but I believe it was.

If you want to access the VFP tables directly from A5, the tables would have to be converted back to the standard (non-proprietary) format that VFP 2.6 supported. You can do this by opening your table and using the following copy command.

USE {table_name} IN 0 ALIAS {alias_name}
SELECT {alias_name}
COPY TO {new_filename} FOX2X

The new_filename will be a Foxpro 2.6 version DBF and directly accessible by A5.

We are doing this with an invoicing application that we created in VFP9 but because we need to access the tables with A5, we just converted them back to the FOX2X format. Because we never adopted the database container introduced in VFP6, our application written in VFP9 still works with standard DBF tables.

We've always believed that the advantages provided by the DBC were far outweighed by the flexibility of not using them.

[Jeff Fried]

Re: Why doesn't A5v9 work w/ Visual Foxpro tables

"USE {table_name} IN 0 ALIAS {alias_name}
SELECT {alias_name}
COPY TO {new_filename} FOX2X"

You can just say
USE {table_name}
COPY TO {new_filename} FOX2X

The other stuff is not necessary.

Jeff

[jjfcpa]

Re: Why doesn't A5v9 work w/ Visual Foxpro tables

"USE {table_name} IN 0 ALIAS {alias_name}
SELECT {alias_name}
COPY TO {new_filename} FOX2X"

You can just say
USE {table_name}
COPY TO {new_filename} FOX2X

The other stuff is not necessary.

Jeff

Depends on whether there are other tables open or not. In a network environment or if there are other tables open, it is always smart to use an alias for the table to prevent an other tables from being closed inadvertently.

[son04littleelm]

Re: Why doesn't A5v9 work w/ Visual Foxpro tables

Hi everyone..
I am very new to alpha five/alpha anywhere (version 12).. I have read the discussion in this forum about how to access foxpro tables/database and I downloaded both VFPOBDC driver and VFPOLEDB .. and installed them both.. but I not able to follow how to make the connections..
could someone here show me how. or give me a link on how to do this.. I would so appreciate your assistance. Thank you in advance for your help.
Oct 14th, 2013