I am wanting to make the move from the free-table structure to a dbc database container on my company's main app that I've been developing on for years.

Here's what I've got to work from:

VFP 9.1

- Native vfp tables with CDXs and some tables have memo fields

- Every form uses private datasession and modeless state.

- Each form calls a custom "open_data()" procedure in his load event to open the required tables, set order, and relations for that form

- Buffering (TableUpdate) is used to save changes

- 12 years of experience (but all with free tables)




I would appreciate any general (or specific) commands, advice, and things to look out for as I begin.



One specific question I have about the DBC approach is this: in one form I may use "Table_A" as the parent to "Table_B" child, but in another form, I need to reverse that and use "Table_B" as the parent to "Table_A" child. So, I am wondering how I will handle this since I think in the DBC model you set all your relations there. Do I choose one layout as the default, and then re-arrange the relations in form.load()? Or is this where the "views" come in and maybe I need to pull a view with an alias and set it all up from there? I do not know anything about views yet, but I have fair SQL knowledge, so maybe that will help. Just need some insight before I start.

Also - I am guessing that in 2-5 years down the road, I may migrate the app from VFP to Visual Studio (very slowly and several years from now), so I thinking that after I get the DBC conversion done, I may begin to migrate from native VFP data to to SQL server for my data store, so that I will be in a position to begin developing in Visual Studio and calling against SQL server. I know that VFP has a VFP-to-SQL conversion/upsize tool to make the conversion, but I do not know if it is the recommended way to make the move, or if I am better off building the SQL server data store from scratch. So, as I build my DBC, I want to do it in a way that will help the SQL conversion one day. I do not know If I will ever upgrade the VFP app to run against SQL server, because that will be a ton of work that I could just invest in migrating the app to Visual Studio.


Now then... would anyone recommend to just leave it like it is with the free tables and be happy? It is rock solid right now, but I just thought It would be a more professional, solid, cool, fun, "real" VFP app if it was based on DBC instead of free tables. I may be just wasting a bunch of time, but I am young (40 yrs old) and love a good VFP challenge, plus I thought it would help with preparing to move to SQL Server.