>>Let me clarify. I am interested in writing a middle tier layer in VFP. The frontend will also be written in VFP. I am interested in splitting the app. in this manner to provide scalabilty so later on the backend database may be easily changed to a SQL Server , also the data may be accesible easily to other programs.
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>>My question is that from the middle tier, how to return a set of records ?
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>Hi,
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>I think what you want is a view of the data, whcih gives you a set of records. Write your frontend so that it talks to the view of the data. This can be a local view of VFP tables. Later you can migrate the data to SQL Server but create a view with the same name as your local view.
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>Codebook frameworks allow developers to switch from local to remote views quite easily.
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>Good luck,
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>Paul de Niverville


Views aren't designed for physically different tiers. They are a one or two tier solution. ADO or XML is the way to go.