>>>Try to use the command "copy to " with the clause SDF on clipper.
>>>Then, create a table in VFP with the same struct that you have
>>>on clipper open it, and issue the command "append from " on VFP.
>>
>>Why not just do an APPEND FROM the Clipper table - with the exception of Clipper indexes, VFP should not have a problem with data files created and maintained by a Clipper application. Clipper may have problems reading DBFs created by VFP (there are differences in the DBF header) but those problems can be handled by COPY TO...TYPE FOX2X
>
>PMFJI: One BIG caveat: Clipper allows character fields of up to, I think, 1024 bytes, which exceeds FP/VFP limits. (That was one way to prevent other xBase users from opening the tables outside of the app...) Beware of that. Otherwise, I think your suggestion, Ed is the easiest way.
>
I'd forgotten about the oversized character field type in Clipper.
If your Clipper file contains character fields >254 characters, you can't export to SDF and create an equivalent import, either - you need to pull the huge character fields in as memo fields, not do-able with TYPE SDF imports IAC, or with simple CSV (comma-delimited) files, either. In that situation, you're probably going to need to write some sort of code, either an ODBC driver that handles the larger character fields, or some sort of line-by-line low-level I/O on an export.
>Rob