>> them to an executible and re-installing the .exe overtop of the old .exe
>> for the workstations. If I take the DBC files (no changes to the tables)
>> and copy this to the server - will this work? Does this make sense? I do
>> have access to one copy of VF5 on the server but its not practical to do
>> the developing work there..
>>
>> Thanks
>> Linda
>
>I've developed a routine to reinstall new table structure; it's written
>in FPD, uses my old data dictionary etc, but the general idea is this:
>
>in the start procedure of the .app (or .exe or whatever), use one of the
>tables whose structure is changed, and check for news (new field,
>removed field, new length or type of existing field). If the local
>tables are old version, then loop through all the tables within the
>dictionary (using .DBC for that). For each table:
> create a cursor with the new structure
>create an array with index properties (expressions, uniqueness, for(),
>idxcollate() etc)
> append from the table into the cursor (this is the moment when we
>really move to the new structure; also useful if the table doesn't exist
>yet, we just skip this step)
> copy the cursor over the table
> use the table exclusively
> create the indexes
>The trouble is you need to be alone for a while, but then - when you
>install a new version of data structure, you do need that, don't you?
>
>In FPD I wrote a generator to make the program to do these changes
>(looks something like GENDBC, just it doesn't destroy the data, and
>covers for nonexistent tables, subdirectories etc). Now in VFP I feel
>I'd make a non-generator, just to scan through the .dbc and make up what
>it says in there.

Thanks for all of your responses. I have been eyeing the Stonefield Database Toolkit for awhile. I just installed a new .exe (updates) and the DBC and tables I had made changes in to the server yesterday and the DBC read the old tables with no problem. I did have to append the records form the revised tables into the new tables prior to copying the DBC and tables into the server directory. As this project develops and expands, I will have to look for a quicker way to get the tables updated. Thanks again . . Linda