Hi Peter.

>I have heard that and actually have it here - except - as a new VFP programmer that got even more lost when I tried to learn that and VFP at the same time, I opted to do this app the hard way with JUST VFP. Once I get better at VFP, than most definately I will be using some "tools" to make life easier.

Stonefield Database Toolkit (SDT) is very easily implemented -- the Quick Start section of the manual covers the high points. However, here's all you have to do to implement what you want:

- DO SDT.APP to add it to the Tools menu
- Choose Stonefield Database Toolkit from the Tools menu
- Select your database if it isn't already open
- When asked if you want to create the SDT extensions, choose Yes.
- Close the SDT Database Explorer
- Add SDT.VCX and DBCXMGR.VCX (both in the SDT\SOURCE subdirectory) to your project.
- At the point where you want to update your table structures (eg. at application startup), add the following code:

open database
oMeta = newobject('DBCXMgr', 'DBCXMgr.vcx', '', .F., '')
oMeta.SetDatabase(dbc())
oMeta.oSDTMgr.Update()

- Ship the new EXE to your client along with the updated database (DBC, DCT, and DCX files) and SDT's meta data tables (DBCXREG.*, COREMETA.*, and SDT*.*), which by default are in the same directory as your DBC.

That's not too hard to do -- I'd say it's easier than custom writing ALTER TABLE routines to do the job and worrying about getting the syntax right, not missing any data changes, not running the program more than once, etc. [s].

Doug