>>I have a 3rd party application that uses Dbase files. Their documentation says I can access these files with "applications which can work with standard dbase-format files." So I want to write a foxpro program (in FPD2.5 or VFP5.0) that can read and/or write data to these files without converting them to Foxpro. I can't find a way to "use" them or link to them without being prompted to convert them. Any ideas?
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>>Minimally, I'd be happy accessing the data without modifying it. Ultimately I'd like to populate the tables with data from another Foxpro table.
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>>Thanks!
>
>Following is taken from VFP on-line help:
>dBASE tables (.DBF files) are automatically converted to Visual FoxPro format when you open them in Visual FoxPro. You can then use the tables as you would any other Visual FoxPro tables.
>
>If your dBASE tables contain memo fields, a prompt appears asking if you want to convert the memos to Visual FoxPro format. Then another prompt asks you if you want to remove dBASE soft carriage returns. Choose Yes if the memos contain normal text; choose No if they contain binary data.
>You must open tables exclusively for memo conversion to take place.
>No backup copy is made of the tables before conversion. If you want to use the tables again in dBASE, you need to copy the table as a FoxPlus type table. In the Command window, type the following:
>COPY TO Filename TYPE FOXPLUS
I thought I'd mention that when I did this conversion from dBase to VFP3, I answered Yes, because my memos contained normal text. The conversion locked up in WIN NT 4.0. When I returned, I answered No and ran it. Later, I had to REPLACE memofield WITH CHRTRAN(memofield,CHR(10),"") to get rid of the carriage returns or line feeds.