Visual FoxPro tips for database developers

Database development in Visual FoxPro requires a range of skills. FoxPro is a relational database so any effective solution must be based on a sound database design and must make the best use of the features of the FoxPro language. We hope that these tips will help you to get the most from FoxPro and VFP.

Most of these tips apply to Visual FoxPro (VFP 3 to VFP 9) although some can be applied to FoxPro 2.6 or earlier versions.

This is not a FoxPro tutorial, you will need to know something about the language in order to get the most benefit from these tips. All are provided for your guidance rather than as solutions to particular problems. Refer to the Visual FoxPro Help system for more detailed information about the syntax of the commands mentioned.

Hints and tips are listed here alphabetically under seven categories:

Code | C# conversion | Data | Forms and controls| Miscellaneous | Queries | Visual Basic conversion

Code and programming

C# equivalents

Data and databases

  • Checksum to improve data security.
  • Clipboard data storage in FoxPro.
  • Copy data to delimited text files.
  • Lotus Approach data in Visual FoxPro.
  • Export data to html files.
  • Export data to html files - code sample
  • ODBC connection to a SQL Server database.
  • OLEDB connection string.
  • Scan and process a FoxPro table.
  • Upsize to Microsoft SQL Server.

Forms and controls

Miscellaneous

Queries and SQL

VBA equivalents to FoxPro commands

Training courses

If you need to know more about FoxPro and Visual FoxPro we run a series of workshops, tutorials and FoxPro training courses to help you.