>>>Has anyone looked at xHarbour as a potential alternative to continuing to use VFP? Prior to using VFP, I was a long-time Clipper user and found it to be extremely reliable and robust. There were some very unique and useful extensions to the dbase/xbase language that were introduced in Clipper.
>>>
>>>Not sure if xHarbour is an offspring of Clipper or a new derivative?
>>
>>Hi John,
>>
>>I have been porting Clipper apps to xHarbour so I can do a more peicmeal conversion to VFP. I have Sales, Service, Accounting, Shipping, and Inventory control apps that share common databases. As you are probably aware, Clipper and VFP do not honor each others locks, and the .ntx vs. .cdx index issue is a total fiasco. XHarbour, on the other hand, uses the same compound indexes as VFP and they honor each others locks.
>>
>>Also, If you don't include your tables in a VFP database, you can still use Clipper to open the .dbf's, copy index etc. (just don't add a record, it would corrupt the compound index).
>
>Hi Mike
>
>Thanks for the reply. Since you are actually using xHarbour, can you elaborate on the product's capabilities as a RAD tool for developing applications?
>

>I'm not expecting all the bells and whistles that VFP has in it, but hey, if it's xbase code and it's solid, then at least it's an alternative that is being supported and evolving.
>
>Any information you can provide would be helpful.

Hi John,

Your best bet would be to go to http://www.xharbour.com and get the demo of the user guide. That would give you some idea as to the capabilities of xHarbour. I am using the DOS version (free) but there is a windows version also. My clipper code ported fairly easily.

You may also want to go to http://www.xHarbour.org to check out the free version.