Conversion Project

[Grimwaldi]

We have a set of projects built in foxpro 2.6 DOS/WIN. I want to upgrade these to VFP6, but as VFP will be no more in the near future and I can't bear to throw away all the old foxpro code and rewrite in C#. What I propose is to use C# as the front end, VFP as the middle layer and eventually SQL server as the backend. Would the best way to access VFP from C# is to build business classes and expose as COM objects?

Or is there an easier quicker method.

Thanks in advance

 

[SnyAc]

FoxPro 9 will be supported thru 2015 according to the Microsoft Visual Foxpro team

Andy Snyder
SnyAc Software Services

http://www.snysoft.com

 

[Olaf Doschke]

upgrading to vfp6 is surely a bad idea as that is not supported anymore. I wouldn't even build a middle layer with vfp6. It seems you only have all visual studio versions at hand and so vfp6 is your latest version.

If you don't want to revert your decision to use C# and you want to use sql server as the backend, you could work without vfp. That would perhaps make sense if the 2.6 projects were already using a three tier architecture.

Bye, Olaf.

 

[Olaf Doschke]

again

The other alternative is to convert to vfp9 first, then migrate data to sql server and then use .NET com interop toolkit to use .net forms within the vfp9 app until you only host .net forms and can also switch menu, tollbar etc. to a full .net application.

Bye, Olaf.

Links:

http://weblogs.foxite.com/bernardbout/archive/2007/06/20/4126.aspx

http://weblogs.foxite.com/bernardbout/archive/2007/06/21/4140.aspx

Alsoe see here:

http://www.code-magazine.com/article.aspx?quickid=0703042&page=1

 

[Grimwaldi]

My firm is tight moneywise and don't want to upgrade to VFP9. They don't want to upgrade full stop. But they keep wanting additions like exporting to Excel, emailing and other mods, which is pain in Fox 2.6. I'm the only IT person here so time is heavy on my hand and I don't want to throwaway all the Foxpro code away and start from the beginning.

I've had a little look at SQL server and VFP beats it hands down for data manipalation.

 

[JRB-Bldr]

"My firm is tight money-wise"

If you do a search on eBay for "Foxpro" you will find a number of copies on sale. And if you look in the "in eBay Stores" portion of the 'finds' you will see VFP 9 at some very reasonable prices.

Yes, VFP will no longer be sold by Microsoft, but we all have applications written in FP and VFP which are still running quite well many, many years after the product has been 'obsoleted' by Micro$oft. M$'s ending product development and support has greatly diminished the industry interest in Visual Foxpro, but it has always been a M$ 'step-child' anyway from the PR perspective.

And yes M$'s ending product development and support has even more greatly diminished people's interest in creating NEW applications with it, but your application is already developed in FP and is looking to be merely migrated into the 21st century. Changing to another development language would most typically require a full redesign to fit the syntax and design approach of the new language.

"I've had a little look at SQL server and VFP beats it hands down for data manipalation."

Well, yes and no.

You have most likely had a look at VB/VBA (the 'typical' SQL Server front end) and VFP. And without a doubt VFP is far superior front end for data manipulation.

But as far as the backends, SQL Server and VFP go, both are quite good, but SQL Server does indeed have some advantages. Creating VFP SQL queries which use syntax which is compatible with the SQL Server backend can be a challenging transition, but it is very do-able.

Good Luck,
JRB-Bldr

 

[Mike Lewis]

VFP will no longer be sold by Microsoft

Not true.

Mike


__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

My Visual FoxPro site: www.ml-consult.co.uk

 

[craigber]

Grimwaldi,

Take a step back and take a deep breath. The reality is VFP will be around for a long time. Support runs through 2015. However, VFP 6.0 is not the way to go. And, to really take advantage of VFP you need to rewrite from FoxPro 2.x, especially FoxDOS.

Having said that, since you'll need to rewrite anyway, you need to decide if it should be VFP 9.0 (again, don't even consider 6.0) or C#, but I would not rewrite to a hybrid solution.

Craig Berntson
MCSD, Visual FoxPro MVP,

http://www.craigberntson.com

Author, CrysDev: A Developer's Guide to Integrating Crystal Reports"

 

[opticalman]

Grimwaldi

I'm a "part time" programmer that decided to update my Clipper/Dos program to VFP. By the time I was finished, I kept only about 10% of the original code.

I wish you luck.

Opticalman

 

[SnyAc]

Actually you will end up wanting to rewrite a lot of it since you'll be discovering much better and faster ways of doing it.

Andy Snyder
SnyAc Software Services

http://www.snysoft.com

 

[Nifrabar]

Opticalman,
I presume that your original (DOS) code must have been not that structured than otherwise you should have been able to reuse about 75%?
-Bart