Useful FoxPro commands

Visual FoxPro is a large and mature language with a wide choice of commands and functions. Many were introduced in earlier versions of the language and have been carried through from FoxBase to VFP.

This means that it can sometimes be difficult to find just what you want in the Help system when you are starting to learn the language. This is a list of some of the more useful commands and functions.

The distinction between commands and functions is that commands do something whereas functions just return a value to be displayed or used in another command.

General commands

CLEAR	Clears the screen
CLEAR MEMORY	Clears variables from memory
CLOSE DATA ALL	Closes all tables and databases
QUIT	Closes FoxPro

Files and directories

CD <dir>	make <dir> the current directory.
CD ?	display a directory tree and switch to the directory chosen.
GETDIR()	display a directory tree and returns the directory name as a string.
GETFILE()	displays a file-selection dialog and returns the file name as a string.
GETPICT()	displays a file-selection dialog showing image files and returns the file name as a string.

Miscellaneous

EMPTY()	return .T. if field or variable <name> is empty.
GETCOLOR()	display a colour picker and return the code for the colour chosen.
ISNULL()	return .T. if field or variable <name> is a null.
TYPE()	return a code showing whether <name> is numeric, text, etc.

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