>I am new to VFP and the concept of an Alias is bothering me a bit.
>
>When working with the database designer, I do not see any method to permanently connect the name of a .dbf with its alias.
>
>How does VFP know that the alias for customer.dbf is "cust."
>
>Why use an alias in the first place?
>
>Rob

Rob,

I had used alias in a Foxpro 2.5 application once. The requirement was a multi-user application for a bank book to be maintained in such a way that each user use one bankbook at a time and there were 3 users sharing 4 bankbooks among them. What I did was this - whenever a bankbook was created, I made a file like BKT01.dbf, the next would be BKT02.dbf & so on. Whenever any user selected a bankbook, I would use a command like
USE BKT01 alias BANKTR
or
USE BKT02 alias BANKTR

Then I would use BANKTR in my select(SQL) statement. This way I could allow creation of upto 99 bankbooks and use the same code all the time because of the alias.

I haven't converted the application to VFP yet.

Alhad