>>>I have heard many praises of VFP as a development tool. However, (embarrassingly) it just occurred to me that it is an outstanding tool for prepping data (e.g. cleaning and converting and exporting for loading into Oracle as an example). I can't think of anything that compares.
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>>>Do y'all see VFP used much in this way?
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>>>Have y'all seen other comparable tools?
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>>I certainly use VFP for this when massaging Oracle data. For massive amounts of data, I use VFP to create parameter and data text files for use by Oracle's SQL Loader utility.
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>I use it extensively and almost exclusively for conversion of mainframe data, oracle data, ingres data, text files etc. I also use it in conjunction with UNIX commands for even more power. Together, they can't be beat. I just wish we had access to the UNIX commands via a .FLL or .DLL file.

VFP is good for any data crunching. For example, I wrote the app in VFP to collect data and convert data for 9 different tax slip types from 5 different systems, includind FoxPro DOS tables, mainframe (through the text files), Excel spreadsheets. Those systems were developed in different times and have almost everything different :). All data then processed according the Revenue Canada requirements for the magnetic media filing (header record, slip records, summary record - again, 9 different types of formatting) and dumped into the text files. Since the Revenue Canada tax requirements change every year, the core of the system is the data mapping class (which is based on my "Combo/Listbox RowSourceType 10" class - file#9680).