Mr. President!
Now file #
9944 available for downloading and I’m ready to continue discussion.
>A particular case?? The cross-tabulation of data is a fairly generic process. I can't imagine a factor that would make a particular case unique. Perhaps the size of data. Then again, this would go back to the core design of the base program that would be useful in all situations.
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>Sorry Alexander, I can't agree with your conclusion especially since you have offered no benchmarks to support your conclusion. To say that the program that ships with VFP cannot be slower is a conclusion that simply has no basis. I have used VFPXTAB on many occasions. I have also used Excel via automation for these tasks. Of the two, I'll take the VFP solution.
My words were based on 8-year experience in FoxPro development beginning from FP 1.0. And I know that cross-tabulate queries never were a strong side of FP, especially compared with other desktop database systems. Of course, it’s not an argument. My sample is done in one evening and, so, is not a masterpiece of software development. But it shows that VFPXTAB works in 300 (THREE HUNDRED) times slower than my code. I think, it’s enough reason to repeat: “VFPXTAB is as slow as possible”. Not sure about VFP7, but think nothing changed. Let me know if it's not true.
With best regards,
Alexander
P.S. You still have a chance to write a program even slower than vfpxtab.
P.P.S. I hope, my next contribution to UT will be: "How to convert ADO recordset into VFP cursor", and don't tell me that Rs2Dbf can't be faster.