Hi Hank,

>>I'm sure you'll be delighted to know that Aaron is one of the most active users of xCase2VPM. <s>

Oh please, no more. My heart can't take any more stress and strain <s>.

Seriously though, xCase and xCase2VPM saves a hugh amount of time. In particular anyone dealing with a views only application (SQL Server, Oracle, or even VFP) will enjoy a major benefit of having the vast majority of your views created for you.

The application I talked about earlier in other postings is around 10 years old. It started life as a FoxPro application and the data was only stored in Foxpro tables (no SQL Server, etc). A couple of years ago I converted the application to VPM and at the same time changed it to views only so that the data could be hosted in different backend systems.

Sadly, Hank hadn't released xCase2VPM at that stage (alot of muttering under my breath <g>) and all the views were setup by hand - it was a right pain as there was a lot of views. Any changes to the data resulted in each view having to be updated as well and some sleepless nights <g>.

Once xCase2VPM was released I made some changes to the application and started generating the vast majority of views automatically from xCase. Out of several thousand views no more than 100 have been setup manually in xCase. For anyone who doesn't have a replacement for the View Designer you also have the advantage of being able to generate views that the VD simply couldn't handle but which VFP itself can.

Everything to do with the data dictionary is stored in xCase, RI, lookup lists, validation code, etc, etc (big list). As a side note, VPM has a nice facility that they call Cleanup code which is basically program code that can be entered against any field. This code will be run during a validation procedure and the Cleanup Code is stored in the xCase model as well. If our application is installed with a customer who has their own development department then we can allow their developers to either change our "off-the-shelf" validation code or to enter their own. How could this be used ? Your client could own an external ZIP Code / Address database. They could have their own programmers write a routine for the ZIP Code field that runs whenever a ZIP code has been entered. Their routine takes the ZIP Code, looks it up in the external database and initialises the remainder of the address automatically. This is a very simple example - you can do alot more but the basic priniciple is you (the developer) do not have to modify your standalone application. Each of our customers has exactly the same application however they are all different in one shape or another. Sorry I have wandered from the topic and went off on one <s>.

Before I start boring anybody I will close by saying that I wouldn't like to be responsible for developing a VFP / SQL application with only VFP in my toolbox (and I haven't even touched what xCase can do for upgrading SQL databases).

Regards,

Aaron