Migrating Clipper to FoxPro 1

[fbizzell]

Is there anyone out there that has taken a Clipper application and migrated it to Visual FoxPro. I am looking for the quickest and easiest way to go from DOS to windows and thought FoxPro might be the answer. I have tried FiveWin but too much programming for my taste...I want to point and click my way through the conversion.

 

[GriffMG]

Not clipper to vfp (lots of vfp though and it is very good) one large clipper to xbase (fairly traumatic - but done).



Regards

Griff
Keep [Smile]ing

 

[sat1234]

Hi GiffMG,

Will you please provide more details about clipper-vfp migration ? what type of modifications one have to make ? which version of VFP you are using ? have you used 'form designer' for @say...get or conventional statements still works ? how one can issue GETS on memory variable and save them to database only if user confirms ? while searching the help on MSDN, i couldn't found something related to this. can i use OCX and DLL file with VFP ?
i think these are enough for now.

regards,

s.a. trivedi
satrivedi@sify.com

 

[GriffMG]

sat1234

The bad news is that the migration from clipper to vfp is a rewrite job - practically ground up. Some of your code may be transferable, but you basically end up using it for reference in the 'how did I do that?' manner.

For a 'quick' move to windows for the advantages this has now (and later as MS makes it harder to run DOS apps) the best approach is xbase++ from alaska - you can get it up and running pretty quickly then sort out the anomalies (there are a few).

HTH

Regards

Griff
Keep [Smile]ing

 

[rob444]

Convert to windows without much trouble:

Have a look at xharbour.
There is an open source version

http://www.xharbour.org

and some commercial products

http://www.xharbour.com

Rob.

 

[JesusTarre]

Hey Frank ...

I also tried it with FoxPro and the results were very dissapointing. Although you do not create Fivewin is the best alternative and with harbour and xHarbour you can obtain SUPER PROFESSIONAL applications for 32bits and also it is available FW for C3 (

http://www.c3compiler.com

32Bits 100% Clipper Compatible Compiler) Also it makes tests with Visual BASIC, Access. My Performance tests demonstrated that a Clipper/Harbour/Fivewin application is 10 times more fast that FoxPro. The tests I made with a Browse of 50,000 Records (DBF+CDX).

And now it is possible to work with Fivewin+harbour+SQL to obtain applications Client-Server.

The acceptable results were with Delphi but the form to program is very different and final software is very BIG and needs powerful computers, With Fivewin I do not need great computers so that my programs work excellent and the best thing is than my systems DO NOT DEPEND on Windows. I LOVE XBASE+Object-oriented programming and Clipper/Harbour+Fivewin me gives it

best Regards

Jesus Tarre
jesustarre@cantv.net

 

[sat1234]

To GriffMG

thanks for your tips. i want to try VFP insted of xBase++ because i dont have xbase++. i tried with local sources, but generally the vendor dont know about it. if you spare some time and tell me something more about xbase++ and/or VFF it will be very much useful.

Thanks again.

Regards,

To rob444

thanks for your tip. i do not know about how to start with harbour/xharbour and how to make win apps. using them. if you can give me some starting tips, it will be very useful to me. in fact i have posted message for this type of help in other thread but it is unanswared.

Thanks again.

regards,

s.a. trivedi
satrivedi@sify.com

 

[GriffMG]

Satrivedi,

With regard to the Xbase, in general terms (the s/w costs about 450 GBP from Alaska-Software) it's about 95% compatible with your existing clipper code - a few exceptions :

You mught have some C routines or thirdparo ty libraries that don't work, and the blinker swpruncmd need to be changed.

All your 'local' declarations need to be moved to before your parameters in procedures and functions - that sort of thing.

That said - the end result starts to show advantages almost immediately. You suddenly have acces to network printers and long file names. You can start using window components for data entry and put graphic elements into your program (so splash screens become a possibility).

You can decide how big your screen is (80x25 or 80x35 or 120 by 40, with a bit of imagination!).

If I think of more I'll send it

Regards

Griff
Keep [Smile]ing

 

[rob444]

sat1234,

Have a look at

http://www.xharbour.org/html/getting_started.php

Rob.